What Happened to the American Civics Exchange?

As the Cantor Exchange, a futures exchange for movies, prepares to open next month, the American Civics Exchange, which billed itself as "the first US-based commercial market for political futures," appears to have quietly closed.

AmCiv launched nearly a year ago after announcing that it had filed a notice with the CFTC to operate as an "exempt board of trade." Accordingly, only institutional investors and multi-millionaires were allowed to trade with real money.

The Exchange listed event derivatives dealing purely with public policy questions, such as whether cap and trade would be passed and whether Congress would increase tax rates. It never delved into political predictions, and it was also apparently never listed in the CFTC's online directory of exempt boards of trade.

A request for comment on the current status of AmCiv was not immediately returned by its (former) general counsel.