Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) investor relations material

Market structure and technology trends

• Tokenization is expected to transform financial services, especially in capital movement, enabling 24/7/365 transactions and increasing global dollar usage through stablecoins like Tether and Circle.

• Regulators are slow to adapt, leading to entrepreneurs driving innovation in tokenized systems, with governments now trying to catch up and regulate.

• Legacy market operators must adopt new technologies to remain relevant, as buyers and sellers still prefer centralized venues for efficiency and fairness.

• Investment in Polymarket was driven by a desire to access DeFi technology and regulatory expertise, facilitating knowledge transfer and compliance.

• Polymarket's smart contracts enable instant, token-based value transfer outside traditional clearing and banking systems, pointing to future institutionalization of such models.

Data, AI, and new market opportunities

• Polymarket's AI-driven event contract marketplace surfaces trending topics, providing real-time, crowd-sourced insights valuable to institutional traders.

• Legacy commodity and financial markets can benefit from integrating this dynamic, unstructured data to inform risk management and trading decisions.

• ICE is working to institutionalize and monetize this data for its large base of institutional clients.

• AI is being used internally to streamline language-based tasks, automate entry-level work, and digitize processes, slowing expense growth and increasing efficiency.

• An AI Center of Excellence guides adoption and integration of new models across business units.

Business segment outlooks

• Energy trading continues robust growth, driven by the eastward shift in energy risk management, global LNG markets, and increased intercontinental energy flows.

• Data centers are a growing revenue stream, with expansion plans and transparent space auctions attracting high-frequency traders, brokerages, and AI-driven firms.

• The mortgage business is positioned for a rebound as rates fall, with a tiered pricing model that is "spring loaded" for volume surges.

• AI is being leveraged in mortgage to predict home values and borrower behavior, enabling lenders to maintain customer relationships post-loan sale.

• Tokenization in mortgage faces regulatory hurdles, but could enable innovative products like portable or assumable loans if integrated with existing MBS markets.