Blumenthal Probes Tether's $6.3M Deal With Bo Hines

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has asked Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino for records related to a reported $6.3 million agreement with Nxum. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nxum is a marketing company co-founded by Bo Hines, a former White House crypto adviser. In a Thursday letter, Blumenthal requested contracts, payments, communications and lobbying records concerning Tether’s dealings with Nxum and Hines.

The inquiry centers on Hines’s role with Nxum and his subsequent employment at Tether. Hines served as executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets from January to August 2025 before leaving the White House to become Tether’s strategic adviser and later CEO of Tether US. Blumenthal said Hines failed to divest his one-third stake in Nxum, raising potential financial-conflict concerns.

Blumenthal also cited encrypted messages that he said showed Tether coordinating Nxum’s lobbying campaign for the GENIUS Act, which would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins. According to the senator, Ardoino urged Nxum to “obliterate” opponents of the legislation. Harry Jung, another former Trump administration crypto adviser, left his White House position in July 2026 and became Nxum’s managing director in August.

Tether told Cointelegraph that it was aware of the allegations and that external counsel “found no evidence of wrongdoing” following a previous in-depth internal investigation. Blumenthal’s request raises questions about a prominent stablecoin issuer’s payments to a former White House official and whether Tether sought influence over Congress as lawmakers considered stablecoin rules. The senator framed the inquiry as part of what he called the administration’s “self-enrichment and self-dealings with cryptocurrency firms.”