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The EthTrade website (“ethtrade.org”) was privately registered on February 26th, 2016.
Although the US is currently the largest source of traffic to the EthTrade website (15%, Russia is second at 14%), videos on the official EthTrade YouTube channel suggest the company is being run out of either Russia or China (China is the third-largest source of traffic at 6%).
EthTrade provide Hong Kong incorporation documents on their website. This matches up with an listing for EthTrade Limited in Hong Kong’s Integrated Companies Registry Information System.
A hidden Hong Kong corporate address is also present in the EthTrade website source-code:
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This strongly suggests EthTrade exists in Hong Kong in name only.
As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.
The EthTrade Product Line
EthTrade has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market EthTrade affiliate membership.
The EthTrade Compensation Plan
EthTrade affiliates invest $10 to $30,000 on the promise of a monthly ROI of up to 25%.
Affiliates who withdraw funds within 60 days of making an investment are charged a 15% to 30% fee on funds invested.
Weekly investment and withdrawal limits are as follows:
Frontier (sign up as an EthTrade affiliate) – $500 investment, $300 withdrawal
Homestead (invest at least $500 or generate at least $5000 in downline investment volume) – $1000 investment and $500 withdrawal
Metropolis (invest at least $3000 or generate at least $30,000 in downline investment volume) – $3000 investment and $1000 withdrawal
Serenity (invest at least $10,000 or generate at least $100,000 in downline investment volume) – $5000 investment and $2000 withdrawal
Co-founder (invest at least $30,000 and or generate at least $500,000 in downline investment volume) – $7000 investment and $3000 withdrawal
Co-founder+ (generate at least $1,000,000 in downline investment volume) – $10,000 investment and $5000 withdrawal
A ROI of up to 30% a month is available for EthTrade affiliates who invest $5000 to $100,000.
30% monthly ROI funds must be kept in EthTrade for at least 180 days, otherwise penalties of up to 85% of invested funds apply.
Referral Commissions
Referral commissions are available on funds invested by recruited affiliates, paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
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If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
How much of a referral commission is paid out is determined by how much an EthTrade affiliate and their downline invests:
Frontier – 3% on level 1 (personally recruited affiliates), 2% on level 2 and 1% on level 3
Homestead – 7% on level 1, 3% on level 2 and 1% on level 3
Metropolis – 10% on level 1, 3% on level 2 and 1% on levels 3 to 5
Serenity – 10% on level 1, 5% on level 2, 3% on levels 3 and 4 and 1% on level 5
Co-founder and Co-founder+ – 12% on level 1, 5% on level 2 and 3% on levels 3 to 5
ROI Commissions
EthTrade affiliates earn commissions on ROI payouts to downline affiliates, using the same unilevel compensation structure as referral commissions.
Frontier – 3% on level 1 and 1% on levels 2 and 3
Homestead – 5% on level 1, 3% on level 2 and 1% on level 3
Metropolis – 7% on level 1, 3% on levels 2 and 3 and 1% on levels 4 and 5
Serenity – 10% on level 1, 5% on level 2 and 3% on levels 4 to 5
Co-founder and Co-founder+ – 10% on level 1, 7% on level 2, 5% on level 3 and 3% on levels 4 and 5
Co-founder+ Bonus
Joining EthTrade
EthTrade affiliate membership is free.
Full participation in the EthTrade compensation plan requires an initial investment of $10 to $30,000.
Conclusion
EthTrade claim their monthly ROI is sourced from cryptocurrency trading.
Traders of our company operate with the currency pairs ether/btc and ether/usd, offering an increase in your initial investment of up to 25% on a monthly basis using our financial management service on the Ethtrade platform.
These results are available immediately after you register an account no investment required.
We only use the most experienced asset managers, vetted professional traders and release detailed financial reports on the status of your assets.
An “Annual Financial Report” is provided, purportedly giving a run down of month to month trading activity during 2016.
Trading in the report is broken down into weeks, with trade number, minimum buy, maximum sell, volume and profit data provided.
The average monthly profit for 2016 cited in the Annual Financial Report is 65.8%.
The problem is none of this is tied to EthTrade’s monthly ROIs. Nor is there any specific information in the report detailing, dollar for dollar, an accounting of EthTrade’s ROI payouts.
Accounting deficiencies not withstanding, the notion that EthTrade’s anonymous admins have generated an annual ROI of up to 30% a month doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
For starters there’s the Ponzi logic test: If EthTrade’s anonymous admin(s) were able to legitimately generate a monthly ROI of up to 30%, even a modest loan would soon turn into a fortune.
Secondary indicators of financial fraud are a lack of company ownership information and registration with regulators.
EthTrade’s monthly passive ROI constitutes a securities offering. A lack of regulatory registration means, at a minimum, the company is offering unregistered securities.
This should be of particular concern with the US currently being the largest source of traffic to the EthTrade website.
As for company ownership, this isn’t information a legitimate company would hide. Having a hidden virtual address in Hong Kong is also suss for a legitimate company.
Despite the production value, EthTrade is in all likelihood shuffling newly invested funds around to pay off existing investors. This would make it a Ponzi scheme.
There’s probably some cryptocurrency trading going on, but certainly not enough to pay a monthly ROI of up to 30% to thousands of investors.
Then of course there’s the referral component of the EthTrade compensation plan, which is a pyramid scheme (no retail sales activity and commissions paid on recruited affiliate investment).
As with all such schemes once recruitment of new affiliates dries up, so too does new investment volume.
That prompts a collapse, resulting in the majority of EthTrade affiliates losing money.
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