NEXO

The 2018 Solidity constructor created the entire one-billion NEXO supply. It placed 525 million units in an investor allocation, 250 million in an overdraft reserve, 112.5 million for the team, 60 million for community activity and 52.5 million for advisers. Owner-only functions released the preset balances under the contract's schedules; the code contains no later mint path.

Nexo's current white paper reconstructs the sale: a February airdrop, March presale and April ICO distributed up to 525 million tokens and raised about $52.5 million in BTC and ETH. That origin explains both sides of NEXO: a freely transferable Ethereum entry and a centrally designed distribution tied to a financial-services company.

The first economic promise was dividends. Nexo said it shared 30% of profit at least annually. In May 2021 the company offered a binary platform proposal: keep dividends or substitute daily interest on NEXO held in Savings and Credit Line wallets. Voting required the tokens to remain inside a Nexo account, one token counted as one vote, quorum was 300 million and a simple majority decided.

The proposal passed on June 8. On June 16 Nexo paid $20,428,359.89 as its fourth and final dividend, bringing the reported cumulative distributions close to $30 million. The event did not make token holders directors of Nexo. Nexo described governance as a hybrid process for proposals the company could implement, and the current white paper now denies a standing profit entitlement.

The SEC's case concerned Nexo's U.S. Earn Interest Product, not every transfer of the NEXO ERC-20. Beginning around June 2020, customers tendered crypto to Nexo for promised interest. The SEC order says Nexo took control, pooled the assets and deployed them at its discretion across lending, staking, investing and other strategies.

On January 19, 2023 the SEC found the EIP to be an unregistered security. Nexo settled without admitting or denying the findings, accepted a cease-and-desist order and a $22.5 million penalty. Parallel state authorities imposed up to another $22.5 million. New York also required segregation and recognition of U.S. customer title during the wind-down and barred Nexo from its securities industry for five years.

The sequence changed availability rather than rewriting Ethereum history. Nexo had stopped new U.S. EIP subscriptions in February 2022, announced a wider U.S. phaseout in December, and directed remaining users to withdraw by April 1, 2023. A token could still exist while a particular account contract disappeared from a jurisdiction.

The current loyalty page advertises up to 9% annual interest on NEXO credited to Savings and Credit Line wallets. It also states an opt-in and at least $5,000 of assets in the account, while tier and region shape the actual offer. Those are company-account conditions. An ERC-20 sitting in a private wallet does not automatically earn them.

The EEA white paper describes what token holding itself confers, rather than resolving every independent claim against Nexo. It does not grant ownership, equity or profit entitlement through NEXO. It gives Nexo Capital exclusive power to modify the framework and permits benefits to be suspended or discontinued without notice. The holder controls an on-chain signature; Nexo controls account admission, custody records and platform privileges.

For EEA admission the white paper calls NEXO a MiCA utility token, not a financial instrument, e-money token or asset-referenced token. That scoped statement does not reverse the SEC's analysis of the old U.S. Earn account. Nor does the white paper promise redemption: its redemption entry means access to services when NEXO is a share of the platform portfolio, while refund and withdrawal rights for the admission are marked inapplicable. A market sale may provide an exit, but Nexo owes no fixed-price repurchase.