Wintermute secures Bitcoin lending facility from Cantor Fitzgerald under its $2B financing program

Wintermute has secured a Bitcoin-backed credit line from Cantor Fitzgerald as part of Cantor’s $2 billion Bitcoin Financing Business initiative.

Crypto market maker Wintermute has secured a Bitcoin-backed credit line from investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. The size of Wintermute’s facility was not disclosed, but CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said it would help the firm manage the capital-intensive nature of OTC crypto trading and settlement.

“Given the capital-intensive nature of our operations, especially OTC trading, the facility enhances our ability to hedge risks effectively across exchanges and maintain broad market coverage,” Gaevoy said in an email.

The deal is part of Cantor Fitzgerald’s newly launched $2 billion Bitcoin Financing Business, which aims to offer secured credit facilities to institutional crypto firms. Launched in mid-2024, the program has already provided financing to FalconX Ltd. — which plans to draw over $100 million — and Maple Finance, which closed the first tranche of its facility earlier this year, according to Bloomberg.

Cantor’s entry into crypto lending signals a cautious revival of an industry rocked by high-profile collapses such as Celsius Network and BlockFi in 2022. Bitcoin (BTC) software company Blockstream Corp. recently raised several billion dollars to support its crypto lending funds, while crypto-focused private bank Xapo Bank started offering Bitcoin-backed loans of up to $1 million as of March.

According to Galaxy Research, the total size of the crypto lending market reached $36.5 billion by the end of 2024, more than doubling from its low in Q3 2023, though still significantly below its 2021 peak of $64.4 billion.