With the state legal cannabis industry topping $5 billion in 2015 and growing there’s a number of non-cannabis smoking, non weed aficionados from Wall Street getting into the game in a big way.
According to a report from ArcView Market Research and New Frontier, if every state had legal marijuana the industry would be worth $36 billion annually.
Guys like Steve Janjic, a former foreign-exchange executive at Tullett Prebon LLC is one of ex Wall Street guys and he’s now the CEO of Amercanex Corp, one of the countries only electronic cannabis trading platforms along side Cannabis Commodities Exchange or CCE.
While Amercanex wasn’t the first, they have built a pretty heavy weight board of directors, showcasing the long term sentiment of the industry. Co-founder Richard Schaeffer, a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and now chairman of Amercanex is one of them. Others from the financial world involved include former Nymex board member David Greenberg, futures trader Timothy Petrone, a member of Nymex and the Chicago Board of Trade and James McNally, who’s been a member of Nymex, the Commodities Exchange and the Hong Kong Futures Exchange.
All of these very well versed business people have the view that we’re in a pioneering time, in a pioneering industry that’s transitioning to an accepted legitimate commodity.
As with any traded commodity there has to be standardized specifications and regulatory oversight to ensure that buyers are indeed getting what sellers are claiming.
Since cannabis comes in a very wide range of quality, potency and prices, Amercanex sends what’s sold on its platform to a laboratory for evaluation and shares the results so buyers aren’t operating blind.
Currently exchanges only operate within each state, so as not to violate any U.S Federal Laws, but you can rest assured that when cannabis becomes a federally regulated and controlled substance companies such as Amercanex and CCE will be well poised to reap substantial benefits.