Howard Lutnick with the firm Cantor Fitzgerald was named a co-chair for Donald Trump’s presidential transition team. She will serve alongside Linda McMahon, co-founder and former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the former Small Business Administration head under Trump’s first term.
Both Howard Lutnick and McMahon are billionaires with crucial connections to the campaign by President Trump, showing that a big part of ensuring a smooth transition is having them on board, in case he wins re-election. Their involvement testifies, as personally, to their deep commitment to molding the prospect for United States governance; they have signed on with a major financial contribution for this campaign.
Howard Lutnick’s appointment, in this regard, has attracted additional attention because Cantor Fitzgerald is such a huge player in the cryptocurrency markets. The firm has managed Tether’s Treasury portfolio, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world, since 2021, and hence places him at the contentious center of the swirling debate over the regulation of cryptocurrencies.
In a recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cantor Fitzgerald disclosed more than $18 million worth of shares across various Bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. These bets reflect Lutnick’s conviction about the future of digital assets—a cause he has taken up publicly. At the Bitcoin 2024 conference, Lutnick made an announcement regarding a $2 billion lending program for Bitcoin, signaling his intent to further push cryptocurrency into the mainstream of finance.
His presence in Trump’s transition team, however, was hailed by the crypto community as a good thing. Alex Grieve, government affairs lead at Paradigm, wrote in X that Lutnick is “megawatt for crypto,” bringing up points like his influence briefing the House Republican Conference on stablecoins and his public reputation in Congress.
Pro-Crypto Stance
The Trump campaign has also insisted on following the Republican Party line for 2024, which sharply criticized any attempts at creating a central bank digital currency and expressed unwavering support for the rights of the stakeholders in the business of mining Bitcoins. It is on this premise of an unwavering pro-cryptocurrency stand that lies the opinion of Howard Lutnick: it would baby such friendly commitments to digital assets, and this probably would make the U.S. one of the most leading destinations in the crypto market worldwide.
This comes as Harris unveils her economic policy agenda as the Democratic candidate for president, focusing on issues like grocery and housing costs while keeping the Federal Reserve independent. She has yet to take a solid stance on cryptocurrency, which is increasingly relevant in economic policy discussions.
As the clock ticks down the rapidly encroaching election, polls have cast a tight race between Harris and Trump, making the composition of Trump’s transition team all the more important. In his purest sense of the term, while Harris focuses on more traditional economic issues, Trump touts forward-looking policies, especially on cryptocurrency—policies that draw a very keen distinction from those abiding by his opponent.
Howard Lutnick’s stances on Bitcoin and stablecoins have been the result of deep involvement with the financial space. He is sanguine rather than cynical regarding the immediate effect of new U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs on Bitcoin, with a long-term outlook that expects a significant rally following the next halving event. His high-level confidence in Tether, with it under so much scrutiny, is also notable. Lutnick has weighed in publicly in defense of its financial integrity: “I manage many, many of their assets.”. From what we can see, they did have the money that they said they had,” Bloomberg TV.
Tether settled with the New York Attorney General’s office back in 2021 and since has tried to build real-time reserves reporting plans it says it will start in 2024, in which critics got the transparency they have long asked for. Maybe that will seal further its place in the evolving crypto landscape.
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