Blumenthal asks Tether, Nxum for Bo Hines records by 6 Nov

At a glance

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote to Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino and Nxum Group chief executive Todd Hines on Thursday, his office said. He asks for answers and records by 6 Nov.
The letters follow a Wall Street Journal report that Nxum, co-founded by former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines, received more than $6 million from Tether. Tether said in a statement that “external counsel previously conducted an in-depth internal investigation into the matter, which found no evidence of wrongdoing,” CoinDesk reported.

The letters were sent by the subcommittee’s Democratic minority, not the full subcommittee. They are a request, not a subpoena. Copies of both are posted on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s site.

The setup

Hines led the White House Council of Advisers for Digital Assets and worked on the GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law. He left in August 2025 and now runs Tether’s US business. CryptoWatchDesk covered the Journal’s account of the payments on 16 Oct.

Blumenthal’s letter repeats the Journal’s reporting. According to the letter, Tether agreed in May 2025 to pay Nxum $415,000 a month for a “strategic brand and public affairs plan,” and more than $6 million flowed to the firm.

The letter says the payments were first routed in crypto through Notorious, a marketing firm run by Peter Vincer, and that Tether contracted with Nxum directly once Hines had left the White House. It says Hines kept his one-third stake in Nxum while in office.

The senator also cites messages the Journal reported seeing. In them, the letter says, Ardoino urged Nxum to “obliterate” opponents of the GENIUS Act. The letter says Hines personally lobbied for changes that would let Tether keep operating outside the US and give it more time to comply, provisions it says became known as the “Tether loophole.”

Other claims in the letter, also attributed to the Journal: that Nxum offered Vincer more than $300,000 for a nondisclosure agreement, and that Nxum has told prospective investors Tether plans to buy 25% of it for $56 million.

The stakes

Blumenthal wrote that the arrangement “implicates federal ethics, anticorruption, and lobbying laws.”

He lists seven requests. They include a breakdown of every payment from Tether to Nxum, Notorious or anyone linked to them, with dates and any wallet addresses used, and all communications and contracts with Hines between 20 Jan and 9 Aug 2025, his time at the White House. A separate letter asks Nxum for its records on contracts, payments, communications and lobbying.

Tether’s statement says it is “aware of the allegations reported in The Wall Street Journal that form the basis of Senator Blumenthal’s letter.” Last week a Nxum representative told the Journal that Hines “did not receive any Tether-derived funds” while in the White House. CryptoWatchDesk has not seen a public response from Nxum or Hines to Thursday’s letters.

None of this is a court finding.

The read

It is not Blumenthal’s first Tether inquiry. His office recently released a subcommittee report, “Tethered to Terrorism,” on Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking network, and on 8 Oct he sent his letter to Cantor Fitzgerald, with replies due today.

Ardoino criticised Blumenthal’s work this week, CoinDesk reported. Nxum has since hired Harry Jung, another former White House crypto adviser, according to CoinDesk.

A letter from the minority cannot compel answers on its own. How much it yields depends on whether the companies choose to reply.

What happens next

The deadline for both letters is 6 Nov. Watch for any reply from Tether or Nxum, and for whether Cantor Fitzgerald answered Blumenthal’s separate letter, which falls due today, 23 Oct.

For how dollar stablecoins work, see what a dollar stablecoin is.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.