Donald Trump · US Senate · Tether · Wall Street · U.S. · Decrypt
Senate Democrat Presses Cantor Fitzgerald on Tether Ties and Lutnick Family Profits
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Richard Blumenthal is asking Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald to hand over records on its business relationship with Tether, the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin—the dollar-pegged digital asset that underpins the crypto economy.
Key facts
- Blumenthal wrote that Lutnick has made more than $250 million since President Donald Trump returned to office, including a $192 million distribution from Cantor
- Tether, which can lock a wallet so the tokens inside cannot move, published a statement the same day citing roughly $550 million in Iran-linked freezes this year, including $344 million in April
- The headline number rests unevenly on two lists: 87% of the 757 wallets designated by Israel’s counter-terror finance bureau transacted mostly in USDT, against 57% of the 101 designated by OFAC
- The letter landed 10 days after the subcommittee’s Democratic staff released “Tethered to Terrorism,” a report finding that 84% of 846 crypto wallets (addresses that hold tokens) sanctioned
Summary
Richard Blumenthal sent Cantor Fitzgerald a 13-item request for records on its Tether business arrangement, with responses due Oct. 23. The letter claims Cantor's 5% Tether stake rose from $600 million to an estimated $10 billion since Trump returned to office, but does not accuse Cantor of breaking a specific law. Blumenthal also asks for the terms of any Tether loan that helped Howard Lutnick transfer his Cantor stake to his children. He also wants to know how much money the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has made from the arrangement, according to a letter dated Thursday.