Polymarket has appointed Jacob Horne, the former chief executive and co-founder of Zora, to lead efforts on its decentralized finance product. The move was announced by founder and chief executive Shayne Coplan on September 17, with Horne set to work directly alongside him on product development focused on the company’s onchain offering.

Horne spent more than six years building Zora, a platform centered on consumer-facing blockchain applications that included tools for creating and trading media assets and creator coins. He stepped away from that role roughly eight days before the Polymarket announcement. His background includes earlier experience at Coinbase and work on systems involving onchain trading, wallet activity, and application design across multiple networks.

Focus on Onchain User Experience

Coplan stated that Horne’s primary responsibility centers on improving the DeFi side of the business. In his announcement, he said Horne would work closely with him on product, particularly on making the DeFi experience stronger after performance had declined as the company scaled.

Longtime users of the crypto-based platform had voiced frustration that attention appeared to shift toward the regulated U.S. operation. Coplan acknowledged those concerns and noted that teams have been working to bring the products closer together without changing existing market mechanics.

The international platform operates as a decentralized finance exchange on the Polygon blockchain. It uses tokenized outcome shares that remain fully collateralized with USD Coin and relies on a central limit order book for trading. Users outside the United States can buy and sell shares representing possible event outcomes through this system. The U.S. operation functions separately under a Commodity Futures Trading Commission framework, with its own regulatory structure and rulebook.

Part of Broader Leadership Expansion

Horne’s arrival marks the third senior appointment in eight days. On September 10, Warren Jenson joined as the company’s first chief financial officer, bringing experience from roles at Amazon, Electronic Arts, and Delta. On September 15, Collin McKinney Hill, previously a general manager at DoorDash, became vice president of operations.

The sequence of hires comes as Polymarket maintains distinct product environments. The international site continues to direct U.S. visitors to the separate American platform, while the company works on closer integration of interfaces, account flows, and developer tools.

Next Steps for the DeFi Product

Coplan announced that Polymarket plans to host a DeFi town hall with longtime users in the near term. The session is intended to collect feedback and outline specific plans for the onchain product. No date has been set, and the appointment itself did not include the launch of any new features or technical changes.

Horne’s role is framed as a product leadership position rather than a completed technical overhaul. The company has indicated it will continue maintaining and improving its existing order-book infrastructure while addressing user concerns about performance and attention allocation between its crypto and regulated businesses.

Official documentation for the international platform provides application programming interfaces and software development kits that allow third-party developers to access market data, place orders, and redeem positions. These elements form part of the infrastructure Horne will help shape as the company seeks to strengthen its onchain user experience.