Tether is facing a new Senate inquiry into payments reportedly made to Nxum, a consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines while he was helping shape U.S. cryptocurrency legislation at the White House.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and the leading Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, asked Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino to provide records concerning the company’s dealings with Hines and Nxum. The senator set a Nov. 3 deadline for the company’s response.
The request follows reporting by The Wall Street Journal, cited by Decrypt, about a $6.3 million payment stream connected to a Tether marketing arrangement. It also raises questions about Hines’ continuing ownership interest in Nxum during his government service and whether the structure of the transactions complied with federal ethics, anticorruption and lobbying rules.
What the Senate is asking Tether to disclose
Blumenthal’s letter focuses on Tether’s relationship with Hines and Nxum, the consulting business he co-founded. The senator also asked about a pitch deck, reported by the Journal, that said Tether would purchase a 25% stake in Nxum for $56 million.
The inquiry is centered on a deal agreed in May 2025. Under that arrangement, Tether paid a marketing company called Notorious $415,000 per month. According to the Journal’s reporting, Notorious sent most of its first payment to a wallet used by Nxum, where the money was divided among three people. Later payments went directly to Nxum after Hines had left government service.
The Journal reported that Nxum earned $6.3 million from the arrangement. Hines retained a one-third ownership stake in the firm while working in the White House, according to the report.
Blumenthal said the payment structure suggested Tether may have known that paying a sitting government official could create legal and ethical problems. His letter asks Tether to provide records that could help establish who negotiated the arrangement, how the payments were structured and what the company understood about Hines’ role and ownership.
Hines’ government role and the competing accounts
Hines served as executive director of President Donald Trump’s Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets. He was described as a key architect of the GENIUS Act, a U.S. stablecoin law signed in July 2025. Hines left the White House on Aug. 9, 2025, and Tether appointed him chief executive of its new U.S. division the following month.
The Journal also reported that Hines encouraged lawmakers to extend the law’s compliance period from 18 months to 36 months, a change that primarily benefited Tether. Messages reviewed by the newspaper showed Hines discussing talking points concerning Republican lawmakers who opposed the legislation with his Nxum partners.
The report said that, after a call from Ardoino, Hines’ father and fellow Nxum owner, Todd Hines, wrote: “They want us to obliterate these members that are fighting crypto.”
Nxum has denied that Hines participated in the Tether transaction while serving in government. A company representative told the Journal that Hines received no Tether-derived money during that period. Tether said it was aware of the allegations and that external counsel had already carried out an in-depth internal investigation, which found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Senate inquiry does not itself establish that laws were broken. It seeks information about the arrangement and the parties’ conduct while Hines held a government position and was involved in developing stablecoin legislation.
Wider scrutiny of Tether
Blumenthal’s latest letter is his second Tether-related request this month. On Oct. 8, he sought records from Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s reserve custodian and a 5% shareholder. The company is chaired by the son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
That earlier request followed a staff report stating that most Iran-linked wallets identified in the review used USDT, Tether’s dollar-linked stablecoin. Tether responded by pointing to approximately $550 million in freezes involving Iran-linked addresses, including $344 million frozen in April.
Tether has also faced questions connected to Lutnick. He defended the company during his confirmation hearing last year, while Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden questioned him in April about a reported Tether loan to a trust for his children.
Stablecoins such as USDT are designed to track the value of a fiat currency, generally the U.S. dollar, and are widely used to move funds within digital-asset markets. Because of their role in crypto trading and payments, questions about their issuers’ governance, reserves, compliance systems and political relationships can attract scrutiny from lawmakers.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at 08:13-08:14 on Oct. 24, 2026, showed Tether USDt at $0.998756, up 0.02% over 24 hours and 0.01% over seven days. Ethereum was at $2,370.5257821182, down 1.4% in 24 hours and 2.51% over seven days.
Ethena was trading at $0.1898396522, down 5.1% over 24 hours and 3.84% over seven days. Four was at $0.2244204587, down 4.98% over 24 hours and 12.39% over seven days.
