Cantor Fitzgerald Custodies Tether Reserves

This relationship shows Tether is moving its reserve stack closer to mainstream Wall Street plumbing, which matters because the real business is not token issuance, it is safely parking tens of billions of dollars and collecting yield on them. A custodian like Cantor gives Tether a large broker dealer to hold and manage part of its Treasury portfolio, and that same relationship now extends into USAT, its planned US regulated stablecoin effort.

• Tether makes money by taking in dollars for USDT, buying short term US Treasuries and cash equivalents, and keeping the interest income. That means reserve operations are the core engine. Custody is not back office detail, it is the mechanism that protects assets and keeps redemptions working at scale.
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• The Cantor tie up is broader than storage. Cantor led Tether's $600 million round in November 2024, took about 5% of the company, serves as custodian for a substantial portion of Treasury reserves, and is set to manage reserves for USAT. That links balance sheet management, financing, and new product launch under one partner.
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• This also highlights the gap with Circle. Circle leans on monthly attestations, public market discipline, and enterprise integrations, while Tether has won on global liquidity and distribution. Using Cantor for reserve custody pushes Tether a step closer to the institutional playbook that regulated US issuers already use.
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The next step is a split market. USDT should remain the high liquidity global dollar for exchanges, remittances, and emerging markets, while USAT gives Tether a cleaner vehicle for US payments, payroll, and treasury use cases. If that works, reserve custody stops being a trust question and becomes a distribution advantage.