Original author: Ashley, BlockBeats
Trump returned to the White House this year and gave himself the most lavish inauguration week in history. According to Forbes, donations from corporate supporters and executives reached a record high of $239 million. Among them, the crypto industry, as one of Trumps most active supporters, contributed $18 million. Ripple, which has long been in court with the SEC, donated nearly $4.9 million, ranking second among all donors. Of course, the money was well spent. The SEC subsequently withdrew its lawsuits or threatened lawsuits against Trumps inaugural fund donors, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, Uniswap, Yuga Labs, Kraken, and Ripple.
Data source: Forbes
Last week, the Financial Times reported that Cantor Fitzgerald, a long-established financial giant on Wall Street, is teaming up with SoftBank, Tether and Bitfinex to form a Bitcoin investment alliance with a scale of more than $3 billion. It is worth noting that the helmsman of this financial giant, Brandon Lutnick, is the son of US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. Against the backdrop of the Trump administrations push for digital currency-friendly policies, the investment alliance formed this time has given the market a lot of room for imagination about the relationship between government and business.
Cantor, the man behind Tether, is both a politician and a businessman
Cantor Fitzgerald, a long-established Wall Street financial company founded in 1945, is well-known for its government securities trading, investment banking services and bond brokerage. As one of the 24 major dealers of the U.S. Treasury Department, Cantor directly participates in the issuance and trading of Treasury bonds and maintains close business relations with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. The companys business covers more than 20 countries around the world and has more than 12,500 employees.
But what really made Cantor stand out was its relationship with Tether. For Cantor, a mid-sized investment bank in Midtown Manhattan, Tether has become the most lucrative client. It is the main custodian of Tethers dollar reserves, responsible for managing 99% of its U.S. Treasury reserves, which amount to tens of billions of dollars.
Cantors relationship with Tether is profitable for both parties. Tether once struggled to make a profit, but now earns billions of dollars in interest each year from the government debt it holds at Cantor. According to Forbes, Cantor not only provides high-security custody, but also uses its bond market expertise to assist Tether in converting high-risk commercial paper into low-risk U.S. Treasuries, significantly reducing systemic risk. A person familiar with the matter revealed that Cantor purchased short-term Treasury bonds with a term of 3-6 months for Tether to ensure high liquidity, and adjusted the ratio of Treasury bonds to cash through a dynamic asset management system, generating approximately $2 billion in interest income for Tether in 2023, accounting for nearly one-third of its $5.6 billion profit that year.
One of the key figures in bringing the two companies together is Howard Lutnick. The 63-year-old billionaire, the former CEO of Cantor, made his bank the backbone of the Tether system. He learned about Tether while looking for a way to enter the cryptocurrency industry after the 2020 decision by federal regulators to make it easier for banks to hold digital assets. Cantor manages Tethers $39 billion portfolio of U.S. Treasuries, making it the custodian of U.S. dollar assets for Tethers stablecoin USDT. Currently, the market value of Tether tokens exceeds $130 billion, and Cantor holds most of the U.S. Treasuries that back these tokens.
Howard Lutnick, former CEO of Cantor
The connection between the two companies dates back to 2021. At that time, Tether had issued more than 50 billion tokens, but the outside world always questioned whether it really had an equivalent of $50 billion in reserves. In February of the same year, the companys owners agreed to pay a fine of $18.5 million to the New York Attorney General to settle allegations of false statements about its reserves. The company was in crisis because several US banks refused to process the companys transactions, and major US regulators were worried that Tether might collapse in a bank run. At the critical moment, Howard stepped in to provide a guarantee for Tether. According to people familiar with the matter, in return, Tether paid Cantor tens of millions of dollars, and Cantor obtained a minority stake in Tether.
Tether previously kept most of its funds in accounts at Bahamian banks and invested part of its reserves in risky assets such as Chinese commercial paper to generate returns. This mode of operation makes it highly dependent on the ability of Bahamian banks to connect with US banks on its behalf. However, this channel was seriously threatened when Tether paid a $41 million fine to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission in October 2021 for misrepresentation of its reserves.
After obtaining sufficient evidence to prove that Tether did hold all the reserves, Howard proposed a solution. As a major dealer of U.S. Treasuries, Cantor was able to easily access a large amount of safe U.S. Treasury assets. He promised that as long as Tether converted its holdings into U.S. Treasury bonds, Cantor would be willing to become its customer.
On the Tether side, Howard was approached by Chief Financial Officer and largest shareholder Devasini. According to the Wall Street Journal, their dealings were very secretive, and Howard only let a few employees know that Cantor had a connection with Tether, limited to a few top executives. He often handled the relationship with Devasini personally and met with Devasini on a private jet.
This Italian entrepreneur who once dabbled in plastics trading is considered the shadow helmsman of Tether. Devasini once said that Cantors custody service enables the company to more efficiently meet regulatory requirements for liquidity and stability and believes that Howard will use his political influence to try to eliminate the threat to Tether. Howard also attaches great importance to cooperation with Tether. In the investment agreement reached last year, Howard rarely personally led the negotiations, allowing Cantor to obtain about 5% of Tethers equity valued at US$600 million.
As a father, Howard is also paving the way for the next generation of relationships. The Bitcoin Investment Alliance is led by Howards son Brandon, who plans to integrate Tethers $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, SoftBanks $900 million, and Bitfinexs $600 million. This model is easily reminiscent of MicroStrategy (now renamed Strategy), a company whose market value soared to $91 billion by hoarding a large amount of Bitcoin.
Interestingly, Brandon had an internship experience at Tether in his early years, and it was Brandon who helped introduce Tether to the right-wing video platform Rumble Inc. According to Bloomberg, Cantor facilitated Tethers $775 million investment in the right-wing video website Rumble Inc. When the deal was announced, Rumbles stock price rose 81%, and Cantors stake in Rumble increased in value by $54 million.
Brandon Lutnick (first from left); Howard Lutnick (second from left)
In February this year, Howard narrowly won the appointment as Secretary of Commerce with a vote of 51 to 45. The former Cantor CEO has repeatedly supported Tether in public: I hold their Treasury bonds, and they also have a lot of Treasury bonds. I am a big fan of Tether, and emphasized the contribution of stablecoins to the US economy.
Although when Howard was appointed as a Commerce Department official, he said he would resign from his positions in financial companies and intend to sell his holdings in these companies to comply with the ethics regulations of the U.S. government. However, opposition has always existed. Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed opposition: I am deeply concerned about Howard Lutnicks past cooperation with a company that has ties to a sanctioned entity (i.e. Tether). The Secretary of Commerce should fight for the interests of the United States - not his personal interests or those of his former clients whose actions undermine our national security.
Now it seems that Howard did resign from Cantor as he promised to avoid direct contact with Tether. However, the baton was arranged early and passed to Brandon.
From the Ministry of Commerce to the SEC, the brotherhood between the cryptocurrency world and the Trump administration
The combination of Cantor and Tether is not an isolated case. The BUIDL fund established by BlackRock, the worlds largest asset management company, in 2024 has become a leader in the RWA track with an asset management scale of more than 2.5 billion this year. The designated custodian of BUIDL is a company called Securitize. Unlike Cantors traditional financial background, Securitize is a crypto company founded in 2017 that focuses on blockchain technology and digital asset securitization.
Why did BlackRock suddenly invest in a crypto company? This may be closely related to Securitizes network of relationships. If you only look at Securitizes management, no one may think that this is a crypto company, but a traditional financial upstart with many Wall Street executives. But dont limit your vision to Wall Street. If you look at Washington, you will find that Securitize hired Brett Redfearn, the former director of the SECs trading and market division, in 2021. He has served as the CEOs senior strategic advisor and chairman of the advisory board.
The relationship with the SEC is not limited to this. Securitize also has a close relationship with the newly appointed SEC Chairman Paul Atkins. Paul Atkins joined Securitize as early as 2019, served as a member of the advisory committee and board of directors, and held call options of up to $500,000. He just stepped down in February this year. Coincidentally, in 2019, Securitize became a broker-dealer registered with the SEC and an alternative trading system (ATS) operator regulated by the SEC.
When Trump announced his nomination of Atkins as the next SEC chairman, Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo congratulated him on LinkedIn: We are extremely pleased with this appointment; although we have lost an excellent advisor, we have also gained an outstanding new SEC chairman. At the same time, the official LinkedIn account of Securitize also produced an exclusive congratulatory picture.
Not only the SEC, Carlos Domingo also seems to get along well with David Sacks, the crypto czar of the White House. Although David Sacks has no direct business dealings with Securitiz, Domingo was not only invited to participate in the Crypto Ball held in Washington in February this year and met again with Sacks, but also published a long article after the meeting to review Sacks early views on tokenization and RWA.
The best channel for “political cashing out”?
Speaking of political influence binding personal brand to engage in marketing in the currency circle, who would be the first person you think of? Although Trump called Bitcoin a scam on Fox Business Channel in 2021, three years later, the DeFi project WLFI supported by the Trump family appeared in the public eye with a high profile at a valuation of US$1.5 billion in October 2024. Trump himself serves as the chief crypto advocate, his son Barron Trump is the DeFi visionary, and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are also actively promoting the project. In March 2025, WLFI launched its own stablecoin USD 1, running on the Ethereum and Binance blockchains, competing with Tethers USDT and Circles USDC.
WLFIs funding sources and investment portfolio are the focus of outside attention. WLFI raised $550 million through two token sales, of which Justin Sun invested $30 million and became a key supporter. Justin Sun previously faced SEC lawsuits for suspected securities fraud, but in February 2025, the SEC suspended its investigation into him. According to Forbes, Sun Yuchens investment brought the Trump family about $400 million in potential gains, as the family holds 75% of WLFI token revenue.
The Trump familys layout in the field of cryptocurrency is constantly expanding, and its investment portfolio has far exceeded the WLFI project. According to Bloombergs calculations based on public data, the familys diversified investments such as NFT, meme coins, Bitcoin ETFs and mining have currently approached the $1 billion mark in book profits.
Trumps first exposure to cryptocurrencies should be in December 2022, when he launched a series of NFT trading cards with a personal style. These digital collectibles presented in the image of superheroes were proposed by Trumps old friend Bill Zanker, founder of The Learning Annex, and triggered a buying frenzy in the collectors circle as soon as they were launched. Now it seems that this successful trial may have made Trump smell the business opportunity of deploying cryptocurrencies.
Entering 2025, the Trump familys crypto moves have clearly accelerated. In January, the Trumps launched their own meme coins, and the initial price surge brought a huge profit of $11.4 million. Through its two entities, CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC, the Trump family controls 80% of the token supply and has set up a three-year gradual unlocking mechanism. Just last week, Trump announced that the top 220 holders of $TRUMP would have the opportunity to have dinner with him.
In February this year, Trump Media and Technology Group teamed up with Crypto.com to apply for registration of the Truth.Fi Bitcoin Plus ETF. Coincidentally, this action coincided with the SECs end of its investigation into Crypto.com. At the end of March, the Trump family went a step further and announced a partnership with Hut 8, a well-known North American mining company, to enter the field of Bitcoin mining. They even launched a dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD 1, to compete with Tether and Circle for market share.
From the president to the secretary of commerce, to the chairman of the SEC and the crypto czar, the intersection of these key figures and the crypto industry seems to have become a tightly nested closed loop of interests. As the digital currency-friendly policies promoted by the Trump administration are gradually implemented, Cantor, Securitize and WLFI may be just a microcosm of the entire industry. Perhaps this cycle has just begun. As for the binding of interests and the layout of the currency circle by senior government officials, whether it will lead to stricter public supervision and regulatory review, or whether it has become a tacitly accepted established fact or even a new unwritten rule, we need to wait and see.
