The Board of Trade established minimum quality standards based on the need for market participants to evaluate the reliability of promises of future deliveries of grain to the buyer.
In 1865, the Chicago Board of Trade standardized the delivery dates for the contracts, thus fostering the emergence of liquid markets in which traders could readily hedge the risk of price changes in the commodities and contracts. Buyers and sellers of grain ultimately became members of the exchange, supported by an underpinning of standardized measures of grain quality and minimum standards for exchange members.