Author: Joe L. White, Jr.
Date: July 01, 2025
Reference: Conciliation Request – Nexo AG, Canton of Zug
Purpose
To demonstrate that Nexo’s platform design, through omission of standard financial safety mechanisms and use of dark patterns, created a misleading user experience that directly contributed to client losses. This annex supports the theory that Nexo’s UX constituted a form of design-enabled negligence, exposing users to hidden leverage without informed consent.
Factual Background
The Nexo platform presented itself as a user-friendly application for managing digital assets. I used the app under the impression that it functioned similarly to a traditional interest-bearing savings or lending product. At no point was the interface explicit about critical risk mechanics such as:
- Loan-to-Value (LTV) thresholds,
- Real-time margin ratios,
- Stop-loss functionality,
- Advance liquidation alerts.
During a prolonged market downturn, I was unaware that my positions were under threat of liquidation until after the fact. No real-time dashboards, alerts, or options to hedge or de-risk were visibly available. Additionally, standard financial platform features such as automated sell limits, liquidation ladders, or warning triggers were either missing or opaque.
Claimant Perspective
From my perspective as a retirement-age investor with limited technical trading background, Nexo’s interface did not communicate risk. The platform’s simplified visuals, emphasis on interest earnings, and lack of granular risk tools gave a false sense of control and stability. This absence of standard margin safeguards created a misleading environment, particularly damaging to clients unfamiliar with margin mechanics.
Had I known my positions were being leveraged and that I had no tools to monitor or mitigate that exposure, I would never have committed my retirement savings to such a platform.
Supporting Evidence or Reasoning
- UX/Platform Audit Evidence: Absence of user-configurable stop-loss, LTV tracker, or margin risk projection tool.
- Dark Pattern Indicators: Emphasis on high yields without clearly surfacing leverage risk, liquidation schedules, or margin obligations.
- Behavioral Economics Theory: Design architecture induced user behavior through omission bias and false security.
- Legal Interpretation: Swiss courts have considered design as a contributing factor in misrepresentation and risk assumption, especially where the platform claims to offer safe or banking-like experiences.
- FinSA & CO Duties: Requires clarity, understandability, and fair presentation of product risks.
Statement of Intent
This annex is submitted in support of a good-faith civil conciliation request under ZPO Art. 202–204. The claimant asserts that the conduct described herein warrants regulatory attention and damages due to misrepresentation and unsupervised financial intermediation. No proprietary platform information is disclosed, and all references are based on claimant usage, public materials, and industry guidelines.
Disclaimer
This document is submitted in good faith, based solely on the claimant’s personal experience and publicly available facts. No confidential or privileged information has been disclosed. All statements reflect the claimant’s beliefs or recollections unless otherwise indicated. Names of third parties are anonymized or redacted where not publicly implicated. The purpose of this release is transparency, accountability, and resolution not defamation or harm.
Legal Context Note
This annex was authored solely by the claimant as part of a lawful civil conciliation filing under Articles 202–204 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (ZPO). It does not contain any confidential statements made during the conciliation hearing, nor does it disclose settlement terms or other protected materials governed by ZPO Art. 205.
The annex is based exclusively on:
- Personal experience,
- Publicly available information, or
- Facts the claimant is legally entitled to share.
Its purpose is to document the legal and factual basis for the claimant’s grievance, promote transparency, and serve the public interest where legal oversight may be insufficient.
The annex adheres to Swiss privacy and defamation standards under ZGB Art. 28, the Data Protection Act (DSG), and applicable banking/professional secrecy provisions (BankG, StGB Art. 321).
It is not an official court document, and no information disclosed herein was obtained through the hearing process.