A london-based digital asset platform, was the source of an investigation by the bulgarian prosecutor’s office. the prosecutor’s office accused nexo of money laundering, tax crimes, computer fraud, and unlicensed banking. nexo has denied the allegations and claims the accusations are politically motivated. on friday, the prosecutor’s office arrested four people in connection with the investigation.
Investigation took place in sofia, bulgaria, where nexo has an office. on thursday morning, nexo’s real-time attestation tool showed it had 133,263 btc in customer liabilities, worth roughly $2.4 billion. by friday morning, that had dropped to 124,939 btc, a change of about $68 million in the past day. this suggests that users were in a rush to get their funds off the nexo platform following the office raid.
Motivation behind the investigation is unclear, though nexo’s main competitors celsius and blockfi filed for bankruptcy last year. nexo only makes overcollateralized loans, meaning it pays lower yields than competitors. it had previously claimed to expose clients to “basically no risk” but has since removed that language from its website. nexo is one of decrypt’s 22 investors. it has said that all systems are up and running and that the volume is orders of magnitude smaller than post-celsius and post-ftx.
https://decrypt.co/119192/nexo-denies-allegations-fraud-bulgaria-arrests
