Senator Blumenthal probes Tether payments to Bo Hines' firm Nxum

US Senator Richard Blumenthal has opened another inquiry into Tether, this time asking about payments the stablecoin issuer made to a consulting firm owned by Bo Hines while Hines was a White House crypto adviser, CoinDesk reported. Hines now runs Tether's US business.

What the senator asked

Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters on Thursday, Oct. 22, to Tether and to Nxum Group, the consultancy Hines founded with his father and a third partner. He asked for details of their business arrangements. In his letter to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino he called the terms of the relationship "highly unusual" and said they raise "alarming ethical and legal concerns".

The letters follow a Wall Street Journal report last week that Nxum received large consulting payments from Tether while Hines was still advising President Donald Trump's administration on crypto policy, including the stablecoin rules that matter to Tether's business. We summarised that report in Bo Hines kept stake in firm paid by Tether.

Tether's answer

Tether said it is aware of the allegations and that external counsel had already carried out an in-depth internal investigation that found no evidence of wrongdoing. Earlier this week Ardoino accused the senator of ignoring important information and of giving a previous report to the press before the company could respond.

A long list of crypto probes

Blumenthal has also examined Trump's memecoin, World Liberty Financial, Binance and, above all, Tether, including a report on its alleged financial ties to Iran and questions about its US partner Cantor Fitzgerald. CoinDesk also reported that Nxum has hired Harry Jung, another former White House crypto adviser, and that the White House crypto office is now empty after Patrick Witt, who replaced Hines, left.

What's next

Democrats are in the Senate minority, so Blumenthal cannot subpoena anyone for now. If his party wins back the chamber, he could chair the subcommittee and set its agenda; prediction market Kalshi put that chance at 69% at the time of the report. The case is a reminder that the US stablecoin rulebook, the GENIUS Act, is still under political scrutiny.