SAN DIEGO (KGTV) \u2014 A San Diego man said he put all his retirement money into a crypto platform only to have it disappear.<\/p>\n
Now, a state financial watchdog agency said the company where that man and thousands of others invested wasn\u2019t license to operate in California at the time.<\/p>\n
Joe White spent a long career working for several start-up companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s over 10 startups that I worked at, and then it\u2019s like a numbers game, and then finally I got a good exit,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n
He used the money he earned to invest and plan for retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned about Nexo from Reddit, and then a co-worker introduced me to them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Nexo is a digital platform for crypto that advertises it helps users \u201cgrow your wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
White thought his money would be safe in what Nexo called a \u201cCrypto Credit Line.\u201d With crypto-backed credit lines, borrowers can take out loans backed by their crypto instead of selling it off. According to Nexo\u2019s website, you can then repay \u201cwhenever you want, in any amount and at your own pace.”<\/p>\n
In 2021, White said he transferred his crypto investments to Nexo, which operates several entities.<\/p>\n
It says on its website, the credit line can be used \u201cas part of a longer-term strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said he put his life savings into Nexo. He showed ABC 10News at least one bank wire transfer to Nexo in the amount of $1 million. He doesn\u2019t have records of all his transactions and that became part of the problem.<\/p>\n
White said he would occasionally withdraw money for normal living expenses, but by 2023, he said he lost nearly all the money he put in.<\/p>\n
He said the investment was something a lot more volatile than he realized.<\/p>\n
Essentially, if the crypto\u2019s value dropped below a certain level, Nexo could liquidate it<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what White said happened with his account. He has an active open complaint with California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation alleging this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about if you have a home equity line and the value of your house drops due to market conditions, you don’t expect to lose your house, right? But that’s what happened,\u201d White said. \u201cThe market dropped, which happens. It goes up and down, but I didn’t know I was subject to that, so I didn’t think about it being a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn’t realize liquidation could be one of the outcomes.<\/p>\n
White said he reported what happened to him to numerous agencies, including the DFPI, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Trade Commission.<\/p>\n
The DFPI found Nexo Captial violated state laws, including offering crypto-backed loans and services without a valid license in California.<\/p>\n
In January 2026, it issued a consent order, which is an agreement with the company. It said the company conducted unlicensed finance lending activity.<\/p>\n
The DFPI wrote that Nexo violated the law by \u201ccontracting for and originating loans with 5,456 California residents\u201d without the proper license between 2018 and 2022.<\/p>\n
If the market value of the crypto collateral drops, the DFPI said Nexo Capital could “automatically liquidate” it. The order doesn’t name any specific investors, but White said what it describes is what happened to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been incredibly hard for a long time. I dealt with it myself, only recently to ask my sister to help me because it was just too much, and after three years it literally almost killed me,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n
He showed ABC 10News a screenshot from his account from November 2021. His portfolio balance grew to as much as $6 million. Now, he said he has nothing besides his family. White\u2019s sister was with him during the entirety of the interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to be a caretaker for my parents, but the impact of this is that I can\u2019t care for my parents like I want to. My daughter\u2019s been lending me money to help pay for my parents, and my parents had to take on renters and spare bedrooms. It\u2019s just been really tough,\u201d White said, getting emotional as he talked about his family.<\/p>\n
The DFPI fined Nexo half a million dollars. According to the consent order, the company \u201cneither admits nor denies\u201d the findings.<\/p>\n
A Nexo spokesperson said the consent order relates to \u201clegacy issues from an earlier phase of the business in 2022\u201d and was resolved through a settlement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter resolving this, Nexo is keeping its California license,\u201d the spokesperson added in a written statement to ABC 10News.<\/p>\n
When asked about White\u2019s situation, the spokesperson said \u201cdetailed risk disclosures are presented across all product offerings and client-facing materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson also said the credit line product is not currently available in California but that it does include clear guidance about the risks.<\/p>\n
White\u2019s biggest obstacle to recovering any money is that he can\u2019t access his records from the company. He hoped to file legal action and contacted lawyers, but it became too expensive.<\/p>\n
Nexo has several entities worldwide. White said that makes it confusing to investors. When trying to get his financial records, he discovered Nexo Capital is based in the Cayman Islands.<\/p>\n
Nexo\u2019s financial products have faced regulatory action all across the country. The SEC also took action against the company. In 2023, Nexo agreed to pay a $22.5 million penalty to settle the charges of failing to register one of its crypto products, \u201cbypassing essential disclosure requirements designed to protect investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley Russo, a San Diego wealth management advisor, said crypto can be uncertain.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything can happen when things aren\u2019t fully regulated or they\u2019re newer trends,\u201d Russo said.<\/p>\n
She added people need to proceed with caution when getting into crypto, especially for retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrypto is associated with volatility with it being a newer asset in the marketplace, so do we want to put something that we depend on, we need to know is there, do we want to take on that level of risk?\u201d Russo said.<\/p>\n
White doesn’t know if he’ll ever see his money again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe company that I\u2019m dealing with has structured their operations in a way to make it very hard when something goes wrong,\u201d White said. \u201cThe takeaways here are: Be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nexo has been around since 2018. According to its website, it has processed more than $430 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (KGTV) \u2014 A San Diego man said he put all his retirement money into a crypto…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1007268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,6362,403257,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1007267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-crypto","tag-nexo","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117112960952222623","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}