Howard Lutnick, the newly nominated US Secretary of Commerce by Trump, is reportedly accelerating the popularization of cryptocurrency, and his company Cantor Fitzgerald is reportedly in communication and cooperation with stablecoin company Tether.
According to informed sources on Sunday, financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald is discussing a $2 billion project, in which clients will apply for US dollar loans using Bitcoin as collateral, and Tether will be the funding provider for the project.
Lutnik is the Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a well-established financial services company. According to two informed sources, after Lutnik officially becomes the Minister of Commerce, the company will be operated by his colleagues.
Previously, Tether used Cantor's billions of dollars in US bonds to support the value of its stablecoin, creating tens of millions of dollars in annual profits for Cantor. The scale of this collaboration will start at 2 billion US dollars, with the ultimate goal of reaching tens of billions of US dollars.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Cantor has been recruiting employees to initiate this lending project, but has not yet started formal lending. If Tether participates, it will become one of the multiple financial contributors to the project.
Leading edge
Tether has been investigated by US authorities for violating US sanctions and anti money laundering regulations, but the company denies these allegations. However, these controversies are also seen as evidence of the lack of transparency and regulation in the cryptocurrency industry, which has damaged Tether's corporate image.
Lutnick's son Brandon Lutnick is currently working as a trader at Cantor, and earlier on, Brandon had internship experience at Tether in Switzerland. And this could also be one of the potential connections between the two companies.
It is currently unclear whether this is one of the commercial activities of Lutnik's company or a pilot project under the Trump administration's encryption plan. Cantor has not yet responded to this news, while Tether has stated that it hopes to invest some of the profits generated in the past few years in different fields.
As of now, the price of Bitcoin has risen to around $97000, which is very close to the market expectation of $100000. This also demonstrates the strong boost effect of the new Trump administration on the cryptocurrency sector.