How does Trump's Secretary of Commerce family earn 2.5 billion dollars a year by seizing encryption bonuses?

Written by: Todd Gillespie

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

On Cantor Fitzgerald LP's year-end spending list this year, there may be a special item.

“As soon as I left the office, I joked with someone that I would be happy to buy him a foldable bed because he has to come to work on Sunday and won't be able to leave until Friday,” said Sage Kelly, 53, co-CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, during an interview at the New York office.

This private boutique financial institution headquartered in New York is steadily climbing the rankings on Wall Street, seizing opportunities in the cryptocurrency boom, and reviving its special purpose acquisition company (SPAC)-driven trading business, experiencing its busiest and most successful year ever.

Currently, Cantor is controlled by brothers Brandon Lutnick and Kyle Lutnick, whose father Howard Lutnick joined the Donald Trump administration earlier this year as Secretary of Commerce. According to insiders, the company's revenue is expected to exceed $2.5 billion in 2025, setting a new record and growing more than a quarter compared to last year.

From left to right: Pascal Bandelier, Christian Wall, Kyle Lutnick, Brandon Lutnick, Sage Kelly, taken at the company's New York office.

“Industry giants and strong-willed figures like Howard have worked here for 40 years, leading the company for 30 years, and his departure will inevitably leave a huge vacancy,” Kelly said. He served as co-CEO alongside Pascal Bandelier and Christian Wall, responsible for the company's operations. “But the whole company stepped up and succeeded - thanks to Brandon and also to Kyle.”

Executives expressed their dislike for the statement “Washington's new relationship helps companies succeed.” They stated that Cantor's success was not accidental but rather achieved through a streamlined team and benefited from years of proactive preparation in areas that traditional banks tend to avoid.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the company's 250 traders are expected to generate over $1 billion in revenue. According to data from Coalition Greenwich, each banker contributes approximately $4 million in revenue, which is about twice the efficiency of large Wall Street institutions.

A spokesperson for Cantor declined to comment on the company's financial performance.

This year, Cantor led the industry in the number of US IPOs underwritten, ranking fifth in all stock issuance transactions in the United States, surpassing established institutions like Barclays and Citigroup. The company's trading business is thriving, with clients primarily from outside the United States; in addition, Cantor is expected to acquire the hedge fund O’Connor from UBS Group before the end of the year. However, the department suffered losses related to the bankrupt auto parts supplier First Brands Group, and this deal faced obstacles at the last moment.

Cantor has also hired bankers, planning to expand into the German market and participate in the wave of mergers and acquisitions among regional banks in the U.S. (there are about 4,000 regional banks in the U.S.). Another target market is the Middle East: Cantor has established a banking team in Dubai and is preparing to enter Abu Dhabi, planning to introduce equity sales and trading, as well as investment banking services to the region.

Most of Cantor's revenue comes from the surge in cryptocurrency-related trading, including financing services for cryptocurrency treasury companies on a scale of billions of dollars; in addition, the company laid out in the early years in now-thriving fields such as rare earth minerals, quantum computing, robotics, and data centers, which have also brought substantial returns.

Howard Lutnick joined President Donald Trump's administration earlier this year as Secretary of Commerce.

“The five core themes globally coincide perfectly with our five largest investments over the past three to four years,” said 46-year-old Bandelier. He also serves as the head of the equity business, which is expected to double its revenue in 2025 compared to 2008, the previous best year.

After the Lutnick brothers and their younger siblings took over the majority stake in the company, this series of successes attracted widespread attention from Wall Street and Washington. The executives dismissed the conflict of interest allegations, stating that they now operate the company independently of Howard, and that they had long been laying out these inevitably heating-up businesses, with today's profits being a natural outcome.

“I assure you, we do not reap without sowing,” Kelly said, “It's easy for competitors to say that because they are not involved in our work every day and do not understand the hardships involved.”

On Tuesday, at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Miami Beach, Brandon Lutnick described the busy period the family had just gone through during a conference.

“My brother Kyle and I have always looked forward to sitting in this position, but everything has indeed come much earlier than we expected,” said 27-year-old Brandon. He serves as the chairman and CEO of the parent company, while his 29-year-old brother Kyle is the executive vice chairman. “This year has been a brilliant year for our company.”

The night before, Brandon hosted a dinner, with President's cryptocurrency advisor Bo Hines and cryptocurrency exchange founders the Winklevoss brothers sitting beside him. Cryptocurrency supporter and TV personality Kevin O’Leary, known for the show “Shark Tank,” was also sitting next to him.

Cantor has also partnered with long-term client Tether to plan the launch of a stablecoin in the United States; at the same time, it serves as the company's financial advisor (Cantor is also an investor in Tether), assisting in its fundraising. This fundraising could value Tether at up to $500 billion, bringing Cantor billions of dollars in profit. Additionally, the Genius Act passed by the Trump administration in July established a regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S., which Cantor also benefits from.

“We had already ventured into the cryptocurrency space long before Howard entered the government,” Kelly said, “Long before Howard took office, we had laid out plans in the technology and industrial sectors, and we had also entered the electricity and renewable energy industries.”

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino with Cantor Chairman Brandon Lutnick at the 2025 Las Vegas Bitcoin Conference

Not everyone believes in Cantor's independence. In August, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren requested more information due to reports that Cantor was considering brokering a deal where hedge funds would profit if U.S. tariffs were lifted. According to insiders, although other banks have also participated in such deals, Cantor not only abandoned this deal to avoid potential conflict of interest allegations but also declined to provide consulting services for Trump Media Technology Group's Bitcoin asset repository.

“When the son of the Commerce Secretary takes charge of the Wall Street firm once led by his father, people cannot help but question whether everything is compliant,” Wyden wrote in an email to Bloomberg in August.

But in a time when politics and business are intertwined in unprecedented ways, Cantor has not shied away from engaging with government officials. At a conference in Miami, the company hosted President's son Eric Trump, as well as Texas Senator Ted Cruz - Cruz serves as the chairman of the committee reviewing the Department of Commerce led by Howard Lutnick. That evening, Brandon Lutnick hurried to Washington to attend a dinner at the White House, dining with Wall Street moguls and his father.

For many years, cryptocurrencies have been subject to skepticism, but early investors believe that the arrival of wealth is just a matter of time.

“One must first go through a harsh winter to welcome the spring,” said Wall, 50. He is in charge of the company's fixed income business, which launched a multi-billion dollar loan service backed by Bitcoin, completing its first transaction in May. Wall stated that the Trump administration's support for innovation, the clarification of regulations, and the subsequent institutional adoption “are giving rise to an entirely new world.”

Bandelier said that the company's success is also due to the sluggishness of medium-sized banks in the United States. “This is the easiest time for me to recruit in my career,” he said.

In a sense, Cantor and the cryptocurrency industry have changed, with this year's Miami conference (the third in four years) being open to the media for the first time.

Another landmark event was the keynote speech delivered by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, before the heads of the two most influential financial regulatory agencies in the U.S. — SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham.

During a break in the meeting, the three of them took a photo with Brandon Lutnick and Cantor's General Counsel Stephen Merkel, all smiles.