Ethtrade.org Review – Crypto Investing Scam

Ethtrade is a peculiar type of crypto-currency company, one that unlike most of those we’ve reviewed thus far, isn’t based on exchange– or wallet services. Instead, it offers its clients trading services which – according to the investment details laid bare on the homepage – are guaranteed to yield profits in the 25% to 30% range. From the get-go, we run into a major problem: the above promise is just too good to be true. There’s simply no way around that. Just imagine being guaranteed a 25% yield on your investments…that’s better than just about anything out there. The ethtrade.org website also features a sort of calculator, which make it clear that these return percentages are indeed calculated on a monthly basis. Earning $250 on your $1,000 investment every month would indeed be quite stellar. It’s easy to see why such a promise would be a major incentive for those considering putting their already earned monies to work. For a cautious and knowledgeable investor though, it is also a major red flag.

Before we delve into the analysis of various aspects of Ethtrade’s operation, let us take a look at the corporate background of the company and at how it’s supposed to work towards squeezing out the above mentioned fabulous returns.

The About Us section of the website does in fact exist, but it does very little to elucidate the identity of those pushing this operation. The homepage itself offers more clues in this regard. There, we learnt that ethtrade.org was launched by Eric Bondi and Michael Frendowski, in 2015. Allegedly, both founders are still active traders, who are in fact largely responsible for the direct trading profits of the operation. The actual trading platform was launched in April 2016, so it’s barely a year old. Further digging in the Terms and Conditions section of the website will reveal that the corporate entity behind ethtrade.org is ETHTRADE GLOBAL, which is registered in Hong Kong under the number: 2488221. The company address is Level 19, Two International Finance Centre, 8 Finance Street Central, Hong Kong.

This brings us to the website used by the operation. As said above, ethtrade.org is a relatively newly registered domain. The actual name of the registrant isn’t available. What can be gleaned from a Whois query is though that the domain was registered in Nassau, Bahamas. The unknown identity of the registrant is obviously yet another red flag regarding the legitimacy of the service.

The way Ethtrade works is relatively simple: users are required to open a free account at the site, after which they can deposit their investments, effectively handing their money over to Ethtrade’s traders. Exactly who these people are no one can tell…what we do learn on the About page though is that they have certain trading techniques that are guaranteed the yield profits. The vagueness of the entire “business model” isn’t lost on us, nor should it be lost on you. These traders make use of the services of various crypto currency exchanges (there’s that vagueness again), to trade BTC/ETH and ETH/USD. At the end of it all, everyone laughs their way to the bank, as the profits are equally divided between the investors and the Ethtrade people. If that doesn’t sound particularly trust-inspiring, or feasible even, that’s because it isn’t.

There are two service-tiers for causal and serious investors. The Standard version promises profits of up to 25%, with a minimum investment requirement of just $10. The Top-trade version raises the stakes to 30% and $5,000 respectively.

What’s more, the site offers those interested an option to earn money without investing anything, through an unusually generous and thus quite suspicious affiliate scheme, in which the numbers just don’t seem to add up.

To make matters worse on the Ethtrade credibility-front, at the simplest query, Google will spill forth a torrent of negative reviews and accusations of scamming. The handful of positive endorsements come from operations such as bitcoin cloud mining services, which are obviously looking to cash in on the above-mentioned affiliate scheme. Even such reviews draw swift rebuttals from the community, provided their comment sections aren’t censored in this regard.

Taking a second glance at the above mentioned affiliate program gives rise to some additional unsavory suspicions. Given how the program essentially gives away the entire expected profit margin of the operator (and in some cases more) one can only conclude that this is in fact the engine of a Ponzi-scheme, which relies on “new” money flowing in at any cost, to cover the fraud for a while.

Running a Reddit search on the same subject yields more sour-tasting reviews and considerations in regards to Ethtrade’s activities. Some users express surprise at the sheer number of red flags Ethtrade throws up, even at first glance. According to such reviewers, nothing about the operation adds up.

Others have decried the fact that on ethtrade.org, the logos of a number of more or less prestigious crypto currency services and organizations are featured, to lend the effort a semblance of credibility. To make a long story short: no one out there seems to have anything positive to say about Ethtrade.

The number one question most crypto currency enthusiasts have in regards to Ethtrade though is: is it paying? Unfortunately the answer to that is no. There’s absolutely no evidence out there in this regard. No one who got paid has come forth yet apparently, and given all the above detailed red-flags, this is hardly surprising. An operation truly capable of delivering 20-25% returns per month would have surely made some people very happy already…and at least some of them would’ve provided feedback.

Ethtrade Review Conclusion

In Ethtrader’s case, the abundance of red flags and the toxic community feedback lead to only one possible conclusion: we are indeed dealing with another crypto currency scam here, one that isn’t particularly cleverly constructed either. They promise too much, they explain too little and they don’t seem keen on offering any kind of insight. Whether they fit the Ponzi scheme bill or not, these guys are out to take your money.

Verdit: Ethtrade is a SCAM!

Blacklisted site: ethtrade.org

At this point, we are just amazed at how a scam site can be so popular and with a global Alexa rank of 9,809 at the time of writing, this is a highly popular service, especially in India, Pakistan, Russia, Japan and South Korea. If YOU have been scammed by Ethtrade, please share your story in a comment below.

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