Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm whose CEO was tapped as Trump's Secretary of Commerce, agrees to a 5% stake in Tether

Cantor Fitzgerald, a major New York financial services firm long involved in handling Tether’s U.S. Treasury reserves, has quietly secured rights to a 5% equity stake in Tether Holdings through a $600 million convertible bond purchased in November 2024. The instrument, disclosed in later reporting and filings, gives Cantor the option to convert the bond into equity, implying roughly a $12 billion valuation for Tether at the time of the deal. This is the largest disclosed funding round in Tether’s history and deepens a relationship in which Cantor already acts as custodian for a substantial portion of Tether’s reserves and is expected to oversee reserves for Tether’s planned U.S.-compliant stablecoin, USAT. The stake has drawn attention because of both its potential value and its political and regulatory context. Bloomberg reported that Cantor is pitching a new Tether fundraise that could value the stablecoin issuer at up to $500 billion, which would make Cantor’s 5% slice worth around $25 billion if such a valuation were achieved. At the same time, Cantor’s long‑time CEO Howard Lutnick—who has been tapped as U.S. Secretary of Commerce—recently transferred control of most of Cantor to trusts benefiting his children, and one of those trusts received an undisclosed loan from Tether secured by the same convertible bond that confers the 5% stake. This web of financial ties between a key U.S. government appointee’s family business and the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin raises questions for policymakers and market participants about conflicts of interest, regulatory oversight of stablecoins, and the increasing entanglement of traditional finance with major crypto issuers.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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