James Newsome has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2021. Mr. Newsome served on the advisory board of Bitfury Top HoldCo from 2015 until 2021. Mr. Newsome served as president of the New York Mercantile Exchange from August of 2004 until it was acquired by the CME Group in 2009. He subsequently served on the board of CME Group from 2009 until 2011. Mr. Newsome has also previously served on the board of directors of the Dubai Mercantile Exchange and is a former director of the National Futures Association. From 1998 until 2004, Mr. Newsome held various senior roles at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ( CFTC ) from Commissioner (1998 to 2000) to a Chairman of CFTC (2000 to 2004). As a Chairman of CFTC, Mr. Newsome guided the regulation of the nation s futures markets and led the CFTC s regulatory implementation of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. He also served as one of four members of the President s Working Group for Financial Markets, along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Mr. Newsome is also presently a founding partner of Delta Strategy Group, a full service government affairs firm based in Washington, D.C. He earned a B.S. in Economics from the University of Florida, a Masters in Genetics from Mississippi State University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Mississippi State University. We believe that Mr. Newsome is well qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his extensive corporate finance and management experience.