Patrick Witt's posting has ended with no successor named, the third senior White House crypto official to leave the post this year. A separate investigation says a firm co-founded by his predecessor received about $6.3 million from Tether, starting while he worked on stablecoin legislation.
The person most responsible for moving crypto market-structure legislation through Washington has left the job, and nobody has been named to replace him.
Patrick Witt's "detail has expired," a White House official said Wednesday. Witt, who was on temporary assignment from the Defense Department, according to published reports, served as executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets and led the administration's work on the Clarity Act, the bill that would set rules for crypto trading markets. He is the third senior White House crypto official to leave the post this year, after crypto czar David Sacks stepped down in March to co-chair the President's science and technology advisory council and Witt's deputy, Harry Jung, left in July. The White House did not say who would replace him.
The Clarity Act failed a Senate procedural vote on Sept. 15 and has not advanced since.
On the way out
In an interview this week, Witt said the administration's priority was safeguarding and accounting for the bitcoin the government already holds. Any open-market purchases for the national reserve would require authorization from Congress, he said, and any new acquisition would have to be budget-neutral. He gave no timeline.
That lowers rather than raises the odds of near-term federal bitcoin buying.
The Tether report
Separately, a newspaper investigation published this week says Nxum, a consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines, received about $6.3 million under an arrangement with Tether. The first payment came in May 2025, according to the investigation, while Hines held a one-third stake in Nxum, served as executive director of the same White House crypto council, a post he held from January to August 2025, and was working on the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law. Later payments arrived after he left government. Hines joined Tether as a strategic adviser in August 2025 and was later named to run its U.S. stablecoin business.
Nxum denied that Hines was involved in its dealings with Tether while he was in government. No regulator or prosecutor has announced any action.
What it means for investors
Market-structure legislation is the largest pending U.S. policy catalyst for crypto. It would decide which agency oversees which tokens and how exchanges register.
The pessimistic view is that a vacancy at the top of the White House effort leaves no one to broker Senate negotiations before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and that the Tether report could revive the ethics disputes that helped sink the September vote.
The more sanguine view is that the regulatory agenda has already shifted to the agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are moving through rules, exemptions and approvals that do not need Congress.
What to watch
Whether the White House names a successor before the midterms, any congressional response to the Tether report, and the SEC's comment deadline on its crypto asset rule proposal on Oct. 20.