Cantor Fitzgerald Chairman Brandon Lutnick personally verified Tether’s reserves when the agency started its relationship with the stablecoin large, he mentioned on Wednesday at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.
The 27-year-old mentioned that within the early days of Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether’s relationship, there have been “loads of rumors” that Tether didn’t have the property it claimed to have, referring to then-rampant hypothesis that Tether was not absolutely backed. New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James alleged in 2019 that Tether had a virtually $1 billion gap in its books, although the regulator later settled these allegations with Tether and its sister agency, Bitfinex.
“I personally checked loads of their reserves, and we proved loads of these rumors mistaken,” Lutnick mentioned. Tether has maintained it has been absolutely backed, at the very least since its settlement with New York.
Lutnick was appointed chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald — the personal mother or father firm that controls the funding financial institution of the identical title, brokerage BCG Group, and business actual property firm Newmark Group — in February, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump named his father, Cantor Fitzgerald’s former CEO Howard Lutnick, U.S. Commerce secretary.
Previous to taking the helm at Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick labored for the agency in one other government position. He denied experiences from Bloomberg that he interned with Tether in Lugano, Switzerland in 2023.
“Bloomberg truly reported that I used to be a Tether intern. That isn’t true,” Lutnick mentioned. “However I did be taught so much about crypto from the Tether guys — they orange-pilled me.”
