Why are Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald lending near identical amounts?

At Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s custodian for United States treasuries, announced a new lending business which will allow people to get leverage on their bitcoin.

Cantor Fitzgerald chief exec Howard Lutnick reportedly stated that it is “going to launch with $2 billion in lending.”

The announcement noted that Cantor Fitzgerald “partner with select bitcoin custodians” to launch this new business line.

Lutnick also noted that the firm owns a “shitload” of bitcoin.

Protos has reached out to Cantor Fitzgerald to determine who it has partnered with for this new business line, but at press, it has not responded.

Tether’s loans

In December 2022, Tether announced its intention to “reduce secured loans in Tether’s reserves to zero.”

Despite this, Tether still has secured loans, but it now considers them ‘excess reserves’ and states they “won’t have any impact on the token reserves.”

Interestingly, Tether’s most recent attestation shows that its secured lending business has grown to a value of $6.57 billion, an increase of nearly $1.9 billion since the last attestation.

Read more: Tether says it makes money but can’t ditch loans

Protos has reached out to Tether to determine if it has taken on new clients to this business in recent months, but at press, it has not responded.

It’s not currently clear exactly why Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether’s lending businesses have grown by nearly the same amount in recent months.

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