Howard Lutnick, a billionaire banker poised to run the Department of Commerce, has deep ties to the crypto industry. But he hasn't committed to recusing himself from Donald Trump's crypto task force that will develop policies on digital assets.
Lutnick is the longtime head of Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank that serves Tether, a crypto platform with the most widely used stablecoin in the world. The Wall Street Journal reported last October that the federal government is investigating whether Tether's digital token has been used by third parties to fund illegal activities such as the drug trade, terrorism and hacking.
