Howard Lutnick, CEO of major investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, reiterated his confidence in Tether’s asset backing during an interview. Lutnick stated that Cantor serves as a custodian for a significant portion of Tether’s reserves in U.S. Treasuries, which support its popular USDT stablecoin.
“I manage many, many of their assets. From what we’ve seen – and we did a lot of work – they have the money they say they have,” Lutnick said.
As the largest stablecoin with a market cap of $95 billion, Tether has faced ongoing skepticism from investors and regulators about its reserve holdings. Unlike rival stablecoin issuer Circle, Tether does not undergo full audits from major accounting firms. It instead publishes quarterly attestations showing a snapshot of its reserves.
Lutnick’s comments provide a vote of confidence in Tether’s reserves after its last attestation showed it held $86 billion in assets against $83 billion of issued USDT tokens. By validating its holdings, Cantor’s CEO aims to reassure crypto markets dependent on Tether’s liquidity.
However, Lutnick was less enthusiastic about Bitcoin’s prospects for mainstream investment. He characterized cryptocurrencies as “speculative” for U.S. investors, comparing buying Bitcoin to purchasing Tesla stock. Lutnick sees crypto as more beneficial to developing countries lacking payment apps like PayPal.
“Why are Americans having anything to do with Bitcoin anyway?” he asked. “This is Americans just cocking around like buying Tesla stock.”
The CEO also downplayed the significance of last week’s launch of the first U.S. Bitcoin ETFs. His comments reflect ongoing debates around crypto’s role as an asset class amid increasing integration with mainstream finance.
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