CME Group's Director Nominee Insists on Starting Bitcoin Mining And Other Revenue Streams

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is one of the biggest financial institutional companies in the world. The CME Group is also the first one to launch Bitcoin futures contracts in the market back in December 2017.

Dante Federighi, a nominee for CME Group's upcoming board of directors election, has recently proposed that the CME Group should explore some other revenue streams for the shareholders. As a result, Faderighi has proposed that the company should start mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

While outlining his vision for the company, Faderighi has recently wrote a letter to CME’s shareholders filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Specifically, referring to the class B-2 shareholders, Faderighi has proposed digitizing and fractionalizing B shares while allowing them to trade freely and openly on a blockchain network. Thus, it will make it easy to track the ownership and transactions while driving further efficiency.

“We can provide superior liquidity to B-share owners; enable future owners to gradually buy into a membership over time; and create significant new revenue streams for our trading right owners,” he said.

While CME is primarily a derivatives marketplace, Faderighi believes that the company should venture in other revenue streams like building energy plants and using excess energy to mine digital currencies. He added:

“Some of our largest investors, i.e. BlackRock, are shifting investments to companies focused on creating value for all their stakeholders. The CME Group needs to get in front of this trend by building solar, wind, hydro energy plants to power our global operations. Then divert the excess energy to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies”.

Faderighi has said that the company will quickly convert all the minted cryptocurrencies into fiat using CME’s inherent expertise in matching and clearing trades. The CME Group is primarily into trading of derivatives and this could be a new challenge for the company as such. Explaining it he said:

"While this seems outside of our core competencies, I’d argue this is our business: we, like the miners, match and clear trades. We’d immediately converted any newly minted crypto into fiat. The net-net is another new revenue stream for shareholders; deep knowledge in new technologies changing the global exchange landscape for the CME; and increased allocation to ESG-focused businesses by investors. That’s a win-win-win.”

Well, if CME really considers venturing in the Bitcoin mining space, it could be a big boost to the world’s largest cryptocurrency.