Nexo Claims a Co-Founder Walked Away With Millions in Company Assets

According to a recent court ruling, Nexo, one the largest crypto lenders in the world, has been quietly engaged in a heated argument with a cofounder who allegedly stole tens million dollars worth of company assets following his firing.

A Bitmex account that held more than $10 million in Nexo’s cryptocurrency at one time was registered under the name Georgi Shulev. Shulev is a former banker and co-founded Nexo around 2017. The account was then ‘terminated’ in September 2019.

Nexo removed Shulev’s access from his company email account, and warned Bitmex Shulev could try to’siphon off funds’. After losing his Nexo email account, Shulev said that the money was his and that he was concerned that it might have been’stolen.

Bitmex frozen the account and requested an English court to determine who the rightful owner.

This long-running dispute has come at a very difficult time for crypto. Some companies are considering bankruptcy as digital asset values have fallen. Nexo claims it is in good financial condition, but Shulev’s money-grab is not the first time that a crypto insider was accused of profiting from the largely unregulated sector.

In May 2019, Nexo transferred 1,451 Bitcoins to Shulev’s Shulev account. Shulev was fired in the meantime. However, it had fallen to 880 bitcoins when a court intervened, the ruling stated. Nexo also claimed that Shulev escaped with 45 million Nexo tokens, before he surrendered them last year at a value of $60 million.

Nexo offered to pay Shulev $1million to give up the tokens in an attempt to settle the dispute. However, Shulev refused to transfer all of the tokens and instead decided to fight the deal. The English court intervened. On July 1, a judge ordered Shulev to transfer the crypto assets to Nexo. However, he said that he could keep the amount Nexo agreed to pay him.

Shulev said to Insider that he could not comment without consulting his lawyers. Insider was told by Stella Zlatareva (a Nexo representative) that Nexo was grateful for the ruling. She also said that Nexo was a safety-first lender.

She said, “Unfortunately, it is a business where people will attempt to take advantage of them and do it in very creative ways.”

According to CoinMarketCap, the bitcoin price has dropped to below $20,000 from its peak of $67,000 last November. The total value of all cryptocurrency has also fallen from almost $3 trillion to $888billion over the same time period.

Companies such as Nexo, which pay crypto depositors rewards or issue crypto collateral-backed loans, have been in trouble. Celsius, a competitor, has suspended user withdrawals and is reportedly hiring bankruptcy attorneys. Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

BlockFi, another company, has agreed to be sold at a fraction its original valuation. However, it is still allowing withdrawals, and its CEO stated that BlockFi was ‘fully functional across all its products’. Nexo, a Bulgaria-based company, stated that it is in good financial condition and is considering acquisitions. It has also attacked online critics who suggested otherwise.

Nexo claims its assets are north of $3.6 billion in customer liability according to a’real-time auditor’ report. According to the archived report, this figure has fallen by more than half from March 5.