Tether CEO Ardoino Fires Back at Blumenthal Senate Probe, Claims Iran USDT Volumes Down 94%

Published October 20, 2026, 2:00 AM PKT. Based on Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino's October 19, 2026 post on X (primary source), CoinDesk's October 19, 2026 report by Jesse Hamilton, edited by Nikhilesh De (secondary source), crypto.news' October 19, 2026 report by Lawrence Mondal (secondary source), the September 28, 2026 report "Crypto and Iran's Shadow Banking Network" from Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (secondary source), and Tether's September 28, 2026 statement on Iran-linked freezes (secondary source). MABOnChain has not previously covered Ardoino's rebuttal to the Senate report.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino publicly disputed Senator Richard Blumenthal's Senate investigation of Iran-linked stablecoin use on October 19, 2026, saying the analysis "misses" Tether's sanctions enforcement work. In a post on X, which he edited later that day, Ardoino claimed that since 2023, Tether froze flagged addresses on average four weeks before the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing officially designated them, and that in 99% of cases it acted before Chainalysis labeled the addresses, CoinDesk reported. He also attributed a 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin volumes to Tether's actions and credited the company's law-enforcement partnerships, according to crypto.news. The figures are company assertions; neither post identifies the addresses used to calculate them or the period measured for the volume decline, crypto.news noted.

The 4-week, 99% and 94% claims

Ardoino's three headline numbers all describe Tether's sanctions timing and its effect. The four-week figure is an average across freezes since 2023, measuring Tether's lead time over official OFAC and NBCTF designations, while the separate 99% claim concerns whether Tether acted before Chainalysis applied its risk labels, crypto.news reported. The 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin volumes was presented as the result of the issuer's enforcement work. Ardoino did not claim in the post that the Senate's entire wallet sample had been frozen, and the numbers rest on no independently examined dataset, crypto.news cautioned.

Ardoino at DC Fintech Week: "outside of our control"

Ardoino also addressed the dispute remotely at DC Fintech Week. He said the report was released to the media before Tether could review it, according to CoinDesk, and argued the company keeps pushing illicit use off its network: "Our aim is to push out the bad actors from USDT. Those bad actors are moving to other means that are outside of the control of the United States, and now outside of our control," he said. "I wake up in the morning and I look at myself in the mirror, and I know that we're doing the right thing."

The 846-wallets report: "significant financial lifeline"

The Senate report that drew Ardoino's response came from Democratic minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Blumenthal, the committee's ranking Democrat, and was released on September 28, 2026. Investigators reviewed 846 crypto wallets sanctioned or targeted for seizure over ties to Iran and its regional proxies between June 2021 and August 2026. They found that 84% transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT, which the report called "a significant financial lifeline within Iran's shadow banking network," and alleged Tether had failed to consistently freeze illicit wallets before 2024.

The staff report also cited specific cases: a set of 39 addresses Israel's bureau identified in June 2023 as tied to a Hezbollah money launderer, of which Tether froze five early but blocked the remaining 34 only in March 2024, and more than $34.6 million in USDT that kept moving through designated wallets after seizure notices were published, crypto.news reported.

Treasury and DOJ referrals still open, and the Cantor thread

Blumenthal referred the findings to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche, asking them to investigate potential sanctions and banking-law violations, including under the Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The letters request an investigation without establishing that Tether broke any law, and neither department has announced a finding.

The senator is separately probing Tether's U.S. financial partner Cantor Fitzgerald, which holds about a 5% stake in Tether and custodies a large share of its reserves, demanding records on its compliance monitoring in an October 10 letter to chairman Brandon Lutnick, a development MABOnChain covered on October 10. CoinDesk also noted that prediction-market odds have been climbing that Democrats, including Blumenthal, could return to the Senate majority, which would substantially expand his investigative powers over crypto.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino's post on X, October 19, 2026 (edited), primary source: claims that since 2023 Tether froze flagged addresses on average four weeks before OFAC and NBCTF official sanction designations, that it acted before Chainalysis labeled the addresses 99% of the time, and that its enforcement work led to a 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin volumes
• CoinDesk, October 19, 2026, secondary source: reporting by Jesse Hamilton, edited by Nikhilesh De, on Ardoino's X post and his remote remarks at DC Fintech Week, including his statement that the report reached the media before Tether could review it, his "push out the bad actors" remarks, and prediction-market odds that Democrats including Blumenthal could regain the Senate majority
• crypto.news, October 19, 2026, secondary source: report by Lawrence Mondal quoting Ardoino's post, explaining the four-week average and 99% claims, and noting the figures are company assertions with no independently examined dataset and that Ardoino did not claim the Senate's entire wallet sample was frozen
• "Crypto and Iran's Shadow Banking Network," Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released September 28, 2026, secondary source: review of 846 Iran-linked wallets finding 84% transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT; "significant financial lifeline" characterization; allegations of inconsistent pre-2024 freezing; the 39 Hezbollah-linked addresses and $34.6 million post-designation movement figures
• Tether statement, September 28, 2026, secondary source: claims of nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT freezes during 2026, including more than $344 million across two addresses in April tied to Iran's central bank and more than $130 million across four wallets in July