① Trump's nominee for Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has always wanted to popularize cryptocurrencies, and his company is said to be planning to use Bitcoin as collateral to provide customers with dollar loans; ② It will cooperate with the stablecoin company Tether. The initial scale of the project is 2 billion dollars, and the ultimate goal is tens of billions of dollars.
AFP, November 25 (Editor Malan) -- Trump's new US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick (Howard Lutnick), is said to be accelerating the spread of cryptocurrencies, and his leading company, Cantor Fitzgerald, is allegedly communicating and cooperating with stablecoin company Tether.
Financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald is discussing a $2 billion project where customers use Bitcoin as collateral to apply for a dollar loan, and Tether will be the financial supporter of the project, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
Lutnick is the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, an established financial services company. According to two people familiar with the matter, after Lutnick is officially transferred as Minister of Commerce, the company will be managed by his colleagues.
Previously, Tether used Cantor's multi-billion dollar US debt to support the value of its stablecoin, thereby generating tens of millions of dollars in profits for Cantor every year. The scale of this cooperation will start at 2 billion dollars, and the ultimate goal is to reach tens of billions of dollars.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Cantor has been recruiting employees to launch this loan program, but has yet to officially start lending. If Tether gets involved, it will be one of several financial contributors to the project.
leading edge
Tether has been investigated by the US authorities for violating US sanctions and anti-money laundering regulations, but the company denied these allegations. However, these disputes are also seen as one proof of the crypto industry's lack of transparency and rules, causing Tether's corporate image to be damaged quite a bit.
Lutnick's son Brandon Lutnick currently also works as a trader at Cantor, and earlier, Brandon also had an internship at Tether in Switzerland. And this could also be one of the potential links between the two companies.
It's unclear whether this is one of the commercial practices of a company under Lutnick's name, or a first test of the waters under the Trump administration's crypto plan. Currently, Cantor has yet to respond to this news, and Tether said it hopes to invest some of the profits generated in the past few years in different fields.
Up to now, the price of Bitcoin has risen to around 97,000 US dollars, which is very close to the market forecast of 0.1 million US dollars. It also shows the strong boosting effect of the new Trump administration on the crypto sector.