Business Overview: Miami International Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MIAX)

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Executive Summary

Miami International Holdings, Inc. is a technology-driven operator of regulated financial marketplaces spanning U.S. options, U.S. equities, U.S. futures, and international stock-exchange listings. Built from the ground up on proprietary, in-house exchange technology, MIAX has grown from a single options exchange into a multi-asset-class exchange group that recently completed its U.S. initial public offering in 2025.

MIAX matters because it has become a genuine fourth major force in U.S. options trading, running four separate SEC-registered options exchanges that together captured roughly 17% of U.S. options market share in 2025, challenging the long-entrenched duopoly/oligopoly of Cboe, Nasdaq, and ICE/NYSE in exchange infrastructure.

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1. Core Business Model & How They Work

MIAX builds and operates regulated trading venues, earning revenue from the trading activity, data, and connectivity that flow across its exchanges, rather than from taking market risk itself.

[ Build Proprietary Matching Technology ] ➡️ [ Launch/Acquire Regulated Exchange ] ➡️ [ Attract Order Flow & Members ] ➡️ [ Monetize via Fees, Data, Clearing ] ➡️ [ Reinvest in New Venues/Products ]

Key Operational Drivers

1. Multiple pricing models across sister exchanges: Running four distinct options exchanges (MIAX Options, MIAX Pearl Options, MIAX Emerald, MIAX Sapphire), each with its own allocation and pricing model, lets MIAX capture different types of order flow (retail, market-maker, institutional) that a single exchange design could not serve simultaneously.
2. Vertical expansion into futures and clearing: MIAX Futures (a CFTC-regulated designated contract market and derivatives clearing organization) and its Dorman Trading FCM subsidiary extend the company beyond options into futures execution and clearing, capturing additional fee layers.
3. International listings as a growth vector: Ownership of the Bermuda Stock Exchange and the 2025 acquisition of TISE (The International Stock Exchange, Guernsey) diversify revenue into listing fees outside the intensely competitive U.S. market.
4. Physical trading floor as differentiation: MIAX Sapphire added a physical trading floor in Miami in September 2025 — a notable contrarian move in an industry that is almost entirely electronic, aimed at capturing complex/floor-preferenced order flow.
5. Strategic portfolio pruning: In January 2026, MIAX sold 90% of its MIAXdx digital-asset derivatives business to a Robinhood/SIG joint venture (retaining a 10% stake, renamed Rothera), reallocating capital toward its core, higher-share exchange and futures businesses.

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2. Business Segments

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│       Miami International Holdings           │
└───────────────────────┬──────────────────────┘
                         │
   ┌──────────┬──────────┼──────────┬──────────────┐
   ▼          ▼          ▼          ▼              ▼
U.S.       U.S.       U.S.      International    MIAXdx
Options   Equities   Futures    Listings      (10% retained
(4         (MIAX     (MIAX      (Bermuda SE,    stake post-
exchanges) Pearl     Futures,   TISE Guernsey)   divestiture)
           Equities) Dorman
                      Trading)

U.S. Options

Four SEC-regulated electronic options exchanges — MIAX Options, MIAX Pearl Options, MIAX Emerald, and MIAX Sapphire — each with a distinct allocation and pricing model to capture different order-flow types. Multi-listed U.S. options volume reached 2.4 billion contracts in 2025, up 41.1%, for roughly 17.1% market share.

U.S. Equities

MIAX Pearl Equities, a cash equities exchange with 56 exchange members, handling 45.8 billion shares in 2025 (down 8.2%) for about 1.0% market share — a small but growing foothold in a market dominated by Nasdaq, NYSE, and Cboe.

U.S. Futures

MIAX Futures (CFTC-regulated DCM/DCO) plus Dorman Trading (FCM) handled 3.3 million contracts in 2025, under 1% market share — an early-stage but strategically important vertical, with the Bloomberg-licensed B500/B500 Volatility/B100Q index products planned to launch in Q2 2026.

International Listings

The Bermuda Stock Exchange and the newly acquired TISE (Guernsey) provide listing-fee revenue diversified away from U.S. trading competition.

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3. Product Portfolio

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4. Competitive Landscape

• Options: Competes with 14 other exchanges owned by Cboe, Nasdaq, ICE, BOX, IEX, and MEMX, with two more expected to launch in 2026 — a crowded but still-growing market where MIAX has carved out real share from a standing start.
• Equities: Competes with venues owned by Cboe, Nasdaq, ICE, IEX, MEMX, LTSE, and 24X, plus alternative trading systems and dark pools — MIAX Pearl Equities remains a minor share player here.
• Futures and clearing: Competes primarily with CME Group, ICE, and Cboe, plus newer clearing entrants like Nodal Clear and Cboe Clear U.S. — the deepest-pocketed incumbents in the business.
• International listings: Competes with the London, Singapore, and Hong Kong exchanges and with Euronext.
• MIAX explicitly acknowledges that many competitors are "more established and substantially larger" — its strategy is differentiated pricing models and niche products (floor trading, licensed indexes) rather than outcompeting on scale.

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5. Strategic Strengths & Risks

Strengths (The Moat)

• Proprietary, in-house exchange technology built from scratch rather than licensed, giving MIAX control over latency, resiliency, and the ability to rapidly launch differentiated pricing models across its four options venues.
• Regulatory moat inherent to exchanges: operating a national securities exchange or designated contract market requires SEC/CFTC registration, creating a high barrier that limits the competitive set to a short list of incumbents.
• Rapid share gains in options (41.1% volume growth, 17.1% share in 2025) show the multi-exchange pricing-model strategy is working to pull liquidity away from larger incumbents.
• Diversification across asset classes and geographies (options, equities, futures, international listings) reduces reliance on any single venue or regulatory regime.

Risks

• Scale disadvantage versus Cboe, Nasdaq, and ICE, which have far greater capital, cross-selling ability (index products, data terminals), and lobbying influence.
• Net loss of $70.0 million in FY2025 despite 19.65% revenue growth, reflecting the cost of simultaneously building out futures, international listings, and the Sapphire trading floor — profitability has not yet caught up to the growth story.
• MIAXdx divestiture shows the company has had to prune ventures that did not reach scale, a reminder that not every expansion effort succeeds.
• Execution risk on Bloomberg-licensed futures products and MIAX Futures Onyx, both still pre-launch as of the FY2025 filing, which need to attract real liquidity against CME's entrenched futures franchise.

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6. Financial Overview

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7. Summary Conclusion

Miami International Holdings has built a genuinely differentiated position in U.S. market structure by running four distinctly priced options exchanges on its own technology, then using that playbook to expand into equities, futures, and international listings. The regulatory barriers inherent to operating exchanges give it real protection from new entrants, and its 2025 share gains in options show the model is working.

The company's biggest forward challenge is converting growth into profit: it posted a net loss in the same year it grew revenue nearly 20%, and its newest bets — the Sapphire trading floor, Bloomberg-licensed futures products, and international listings via TISE — are all still in early, cash-consuming stages against far larger, better-capitalized incumbents like Cboe, Nasdaq, ICE, and CME.