Self-Regulatory Organizations; MIAX Sapphire, LLC; Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change To Amend Exchange Rule 516, Order Types, To Remove the Definition of a Route to Floor Order

<NOTICE> SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION <DEPDOC>[Release No. 34-104457; File No. SR-SAPPHIRE-2025-40]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Self-Regulatory Organizations; MIAX Sapphire, LLC; Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change To Amend Exchange Rule 516, Order Types, To Remove the Definition of a Route to Floor Order</SUBJECT> <DATE>December 18, 2025.</DATE> Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and Rule 19b-4 thereunder, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> notice is hereby given that, on December 5, 2025, MIAX Sapphire, LLC (“MIAX Sapphire” or “Exchange”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) a proposed rule change as described in Items I and II below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  17 CFR 240.19b-4. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change</HD> The Exchange proposes to amend Exchange Rule 516 to remove the definition of Route to Floor Order. The text of the proposed rule change is available on the Exchange's website at <E T="03">https://www.miaxglobal.com/markets/us-options/miax-sapphire/rule-filings,</E> and at the Exchange's principal office. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change</HD> In its filing with the Commission, the Exchange included statements concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Purpose</HD> On July 15, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) approved the Exchange's Form 1 application to register as a national securities exchange under Section 6 of the Exchange Act. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> At that time, the Exchange adopted its Rulebook which established rules for both the electronic market and the physical Trading Floor, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> even though the physical Trading Floor  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> was slated to launch several months following the launch of the electronic market. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Included in the Rulebook was Rule 516, Order Types, which established a “Route to Floor Order” order type, among other order types. At the time the Exchange adopted Rule 516 (July 15, 2024), the Exchange believed that such an order type might be desired by Members once the Trading Floor actually launched. However, to date, there has been no such Member interest to implement and support such order type. Accordingly, since this order type was never built in the Exchange's System  <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> or implemented on the Exchange, and since the Exchange does not propose to build and implement this order type in the future, the Exchange proposes to remove this order type from the Exchange's Rulebook. To the extent that the Exchange changes its opinion and desires to implement such an order type in the future, the Exchange will file a separate rule change with the Commission under Rule 19b-4. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Securities Exchange Act Release No. 100539 (July 15, 2024), 89 FR 58848 (July 19, 2024) (File No. 10-240) (order approving application of MIAX Sapphire, LLC for registration as a national securities exchange). (Exhibit B) (establishing rules for the physical Trading Floor). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The term “Trading Floor” or “Floor” means the physical trading floor of the Exchange located in Miami, Florida. The Trading Floor shall consist of one “Crowd Area” or “Pit” where Floor Participants will be located and option contracts will be traded. The Crowd Area or Pit shall be marked with specific visible boundaries on the Trading Floor, as determined by the Exchange. A Floor Broker must represent all orders in an “open outcry” fashion in the Crowd Area. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 100. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Physical trading began on the MIAX Sapphire Trading Floor on September 12, 2025. <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Press Release, Miami International Holdings Launches Next-Generation Options Trading Floor in Miami, available online at <E T="03">https://www.miaxglobal.com/sites/default/files/press_release-files/MIAX_Press_Release_09162025.pdf</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Electronic trading began on MIAX Sapphire on August 12, 2024. <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Press Release, Miami International Holdings Announces Successful Launch of MIAX Sapphire Options Exchange, available online at <E T="03">https://www.miaxglobal.com/sites/default/files/press_release-files/MIAX_Press_Release_08132024.pdf</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  The term “System” means the automated trading system used by the Exchange for the trading of securities. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 100. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Proposal To Remove the Definition of Route to Floor Order</HD> The Exchange proposes to amend Exchange Rule 516 to remove the definition of Route to Floor Order. Currently, Exchange Rule 516(k) provides that, “[a] Route to Floor order is an order that is routed to a designated Floor Broker  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> on the Exchange's Trading Floor. An order routed to the Trading Floor is handled in accordance with Rule 2040.” The Exchange notes that Route to Floor orders have never been implemented and are not currently in use. Additionally, the Exchange has no plans to implement this order type and now proposes to remove paragraph (k) of Rule 516 in its entirety. The purpose of the proposed change is to remove an unused order type from the Exchange's Rulebook to provide greater clarity to Members  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> and the public regarding the Exchange's offerings and functionality. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  A Floor Broker is an individual who is registered with the Exchange for the purpose, while on the Trading Floor, of accepting and handling options orders. A floor Broker must be registered as a Floor Participant prior to registering as a Floor Broker. A Floor Broker may take into his own account, and subsequently liquidate, any position that results from an error made while attempting to execute, as Floor Broker, an order. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 2015. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  The term “Member” means an individual or organization approved to exercise the trading rights associated with a Trading Permit. Members are deemed “members” under the Exchange Act. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 100. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD3">2. Statutory Basis</HD> The Exchange believes that the proposed rule change is consistent with Section 6(b) of the Act, <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> in general, and furthers the objectives of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act, <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> in particular, in that it is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, to promote just and equitable principles of trade, to foster cooperation and coordination with persons engaged in regulating, clearing, settling, processing information with respect to, and facilitating transactions in securities, to remove impediments to and perfect the mechanism of a free and open market and a national market system, and, in general, to protect investors and the public interest. Specifically, the Exchange believes that the proposed rule change will provide greater clarity to Members and the public regarding the Exchange's Rulebook by removing the description of an order type that was not implemented for use on the Exchange, thereby providing accuracy and consistency within the Exchange's Rulebook. <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  15 U.S.C. 78f(b). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5). </FTNT> The Exchange believes that the proposed rule change also furthers the objectives of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> In particular, that it is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, promote just and equitable principles of trade, foster cooperation and coordination with persons engaged in regulating, clearing, settling, processing information with respect to, and facilitating transactions in securities, remove impediments to and perfect the mechanisms of a free and open market and a national market system and, in general, protect investors and the public interest. The Exchange believes the proposed change promotes just and equitable principles of trade and remove impediments to and perfect the mechanism of a free and open market and a national market system because the proposed rule change will provide greater clarity to Members and the public regarding the Exchange's Rulebook by removing the description of an order type which was not implemented for use on the Exchange, thereby removing any inconsistency between the Exchange's Rulebook and its System. It is in the public interest for the Exchange's Rulebook to be accurate and concise so as to eliminate the potential for confusion. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>  15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Burden on Competition</HD> The Exchange does not believe that the proposed rule change will impose any burden on competition that is not necessary or appropriate in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Intramarket Competition</HD> The Exchange believes that the proposed ru ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━