I’m increasingly getting questions about Bitcoin from family, friends and random people when I tell them I work in the cryptocurrency industry. Normally I’m excited to talk to people about Bitcoin, but not this time since these questions relate to MTI and Crowd1.

Crowd1 and MTI are illegal pyramid schemes and people who “invest” in them will lose their money when they inevitably collapse. I’m working on a more in-depth write up on MTI, but just wanted to share a couple red flags that I’ve seen so far.

The rhetoric used on their website and videos focus on “being your own boss”, “building your own business” and “leveraging your network” to create a passive income and sharing wealth, all while downplaying the risk and details of how it all works.

MTI claims to have access to some magical forex trading bot. You send them Bitcoin, they use it to trade, and your Bitcoin grows ±10% a month. MTI takes 10% of the profits, you get 40%, the trader takes 25% and the other 25% goes to the leadership team as a binary commission.

What they say and do are 2 different things however. They claim that the funds are locked up in cold storage, but blockchain analysis shows that almost all of the Bitcoin they’ve received has been moved. Where you ask? Not the the “FX Broker” they claim, but to a gambling site.

Their binary referral model is shaped like a pyramid. It’s frequently reiterated however that this aspect is optional. I’ve listened to many of their seminars, and one story that comes up often is “all companies are pyramid shaped”, a classic deflection technique

The MTI “corporate team” and lead promoters all have very, very close ties to BTC Global, a bitcoin trading pyramid scheme that collapsed spectacularly. I’m not saying that they were behind BTC Global, but their presence and involvement makes me nervous.

Covid and a global recession means people are increasingly desperate for an alternative or additional income. While Bitcoin has a role to play in changing financial systems and improving people’s lives, that role should not be to let them fall prey to scams.

I hope that the @FSCA_ZA can also look into MTI as they did with Crowd1. Best case scenario: MTI is legitimate but in contravention of the FAIS act. Worst case scenario it’s a pyramid scheme that collapses and people lose their life savings. My money is on the latter.

This is a great thread on why Crowd1 is dodgy btw. From what I can tell, MTI is about 4x bigger than Crowd1 in South Africa. https://twitter.com/iamkoshiek/status/1273308566884057089?s=20