Howard Lutnick, US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary, aims to launch a $2 billion project to lend dollars to clients who supply Bitcoin as collateral, according to Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter on Nov. 24.
Funding for the program will start at $2 billion and is “expected to eventually reach into the tens of billions,” one of the sources told Bloomberg.
Lutnick’s financial services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, currently provides custody services to Tether. It uses it to hold the billions of dollars of US Treasuries that act as reserves for its USDT stablecoin.
Cantor Tether Partnership
As Lutnick prepares for a US government position, he is planning to hand over his firm’s relationship with Tether to colleagues. Brandon Lutnick, his son who works at Cantor as a trader, has previously interned with Tether in Lugano, Switzerland, Bloomberg noted.
“Tether Investments is looking to use part of the profits generated in the past years for different opportunities,” a Tether spokesperson told Reuters.
Cantor announced the Bitcoin financing project in June, stating at the time, “We are excited to help unlock Bitcoin’s full potential and continue bridging the gap between traditional finance and digital assets.”
Additionally, Cantor struck a deal to invest in Tether with a stake valued at as much as $600 million, equating to about a 5% ownership interest, according to a Wall Street Journal report over the weekend.
“I wonder if that’s an older share purchase, dating back to a lower interest rate period and smaller Tether market cap,” mulled Bitcoin pioneer Adam Back, who added, “sounds a bit cheap otherwise given the revenue you can calculate from interest at treasury rates.”
Cantor Fitzgerald is buying 5% of Tether for $600M.
Cantor gets a stake in one of the most profitable companies, while Tether gains regulatory protection.
Cantor CEO @howardlutnick, is Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary.
Somewhere, @Bitfinexed is crying.
Bullish for Bitcoin.
— Wayne Vaughan (@WayneVaughan) November 24, 2024
The WSJ has repeatedly targeted Tether with FUD, its latest in October claiming that the firm was being investigated for failing to comply with AML laws, an accusation that CEO Paolo Ardoino denied, labeling it as regurgitated “old noise.”
Industry observers have speculated that the targeting of Tether by US financial regulators could be coming to an end under the new pro-crypto administration.
Tether Supply Surges
Tether’s USDT supply has surged more than 10% since the beginning of November to $132.8 billion, giving it a commanding market dominance of 68.5%.
The total stablecoin market cap has surged to a record high of $194 billion, representing 5.5% of the entire crypto market, according to Coingecko.
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