Most Influential: Brandon and Howard Lutnick

Finance Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Most Influential: Brandon and Howard Lutnick The world's biggest stablecoin issuer struggled to maintain banking relationships for a few years and faced accusations it wasn't fully backing its circulating tokens — then one of the world's biggest financial firms, Cantor Fitzgerald, became its custodian. By Nikhilesh De | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Dec 9, 2025, 3:00 p.m. Stablecoin issuer Tether has north of $180 billion in its namesake stablecoin USDT USDT $ 1.0002 circulating, with comfortable assurances from one of the world's most prominent financial firms that it has the funds it claims. Brandon Lutnick, the current chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, told the audience at CoinDesk's Consensus Toronto 2025 that he had personally verified Tether's reserves. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . "I personally checked a lot of their reserves, and we proved a lot of those rumors wrong," he said in May. Cantor has been a custodian for Tether's U.S. Treasuries since at least 2021 . Then-Chairman Howard Lutnick — now the U.S. Commerce Secretary — confirmed that his firm had been providing services to the stablecoin issuer in December of 2023. In doing so, the Lutnicks and Cantor conferred a new level of legitimacy and stability to the world's largest stablecoin issuer, which had previously struggled with maintaining banking relationships and assuring the public at large that it was fully backed. Tether settled an inquiry with the New York Attorney General's office in 2021, after Attorney General Letitia James alleged that the company had been missing north of $800 million in assets backing its reserves. As part of the settlement, Tether agreed to publish reserve breakdowns . Tether is continuing to grow. It announced earlier this year it would launch a new stablecoin specifically for the U.S. following this year's passage of the GENIUS Act, tapping former White House official Bo Hines to lead this new division. Cantor will manage this firm's reserves as well. The company's growth — and Cantor's assurances — hasn't quelled all of the critics: Last month, S&P Global Ratings downgraded USDT , citing concerns over how much of its reserves were composed of Bitcoin BTC $ 90,375.60 . A price drop in the world's biggest digital asset might lead to USDT being undercollateralized, the report said. Howard Lutnick hedged his comments when testifying before Congress earlier this year, saying Cantor had not been "conducting continuous diligence on Tether's financial statements," though he continued on to say "Tether has every penny, and it can produce liquidity on a moment's notice." Cantor fitzgerald Howard lutnick Most Influential 2025 More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You Most Influential: Paolo Ardoino By Jamie Crawley | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon 1 minute ago The CEO of Tether is turning the stablecoin into a global financial force. Read full story Latest Crypto News Ethereum’s P2P Layer Is Improving Just as Institutional ETH Buys Pick Up 1 hour ago Most Influential: Paolo Ardoino 1 minute ago Most Influential: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss 1 minute ago Regulatory Battle Over Tokenized U.S. Stocks Escalates, HSBC Says 10 minutes ago TON Token Yearly Loss Nears 72%, but Potential Reversal Signs Emerge 12 minutes ago CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Uniswap (UNI) Falls 1.6% as Index Trades Lower 37 minutes ago Top Stories CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 23 hours ago Standard Chartered Throws in the Towel on Bullish Bitcoin Forecast 1 hour ago No Direction: Crypto Daybook Americas 2 hours ago IREN Raises $2.3B, Repurchases Debt in Balance Sheet Overhaul 2 hours ago SGX's Crypto Futures Draw New Liquidity, Not Diverted Cash, Exchange's President Says 5 hours ago Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin Slips Back Toward Danger Zone Ahead of Fed Decision 3 hours ago In this article BTC BTC $ 90,375.60 ◢ 0.55 %