CopyProTraders provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.
CopyProTraders’ website domain (“copyprotraders.com”) was privately registered on October 17th, 2020.
Further research reveals CopyProTraders affiliates citing Antione McBay as founder of the company:
Rather than just be upfront about company ownership, on LinkedIn McBay refers to himself as CopyProTraders’ “servant” (cringe) and Chairman.
Antione McBay seems to have made a name for himself in the early 2000s and 2010s promoting Max International and Momentis.
McBay’s Facebook page has him “from Dallas, Texas”. His LinkedIn profile cites him in Vietnam.
It appears that although McBay is a US citizen from Texas, approximately three years ago he relocated to Vietnam.
McBay’s move to Vietnam saw him get into cryptocurrency fraud, via promotion of BitAnex and E-Platform 365.
BitAnex is some ERC-20 shit token. I wasn’t able to ascertain if there was a separate income opportunity attached to it. I did note it was promoted alongside E-Platform 365.
E-Platform 365 was a daily returns Ponzi scheme operating under the guise of cashback.
After E-Platform 365 collapsed I wasn’t able to ascertain whether McBay continued to promote crypto scams.
At some point he joined QuiAri and was part of “Quiari Team Vietnam”.
McBay was still promoting QuiAri into mid 2020, which leads us to CopyProTraders’ end of year launch.
Read on for a full review of CopyProTraders’ MLM opportunity.
CopyProTraders’ Products
CopyProTraders has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market CopyProTraders affiliate membership itself.
CopyProTraders’ Compensation Plan
CopyProTraders affiliates sign up and place cryptocurrency under the control of CopyProTraders. CopyProTraders executes trades on the affiliate’s behalf, on the expectation of passive returns.
Each CopyProTraders affiliate is charged $99 a month for access to passive returns.
CopyProTraders takes this fee and uses it to pay recruitment commissions.
Note that CopyProTraders withholds commissions until an affiliate has “earned at least $600”.
Recruitment Commissions
CopyProTraders pays recruitment commissions 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):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
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.
CopyProTraders caps payable unilevel team levels at seven.
Recruitment commissions are paid on every $99 affiliate fee paid across these seven levels as follows:
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – $21
- levels 2 to 7 – $7
Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus
CopyProTraders takes $10 of every $99 affiliate membership fee and uses it to pay a Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus.
To qualify for the Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus, a CopyProTraders affiliate must recruit and maintain 15 personally recruited affiliates. Each of these fifteen recruited affiliates must have recruited five affiliates themselves.
The Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus is $10 paid to the first qualified upline affiliate.
I.e. if the recruiting affiliate isn’t Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus qualified, the system will search further upline until it finds a qualified affiliate.
That affiliate will receive the $10 Top Affiliate Infinity Bonus, monthly recurring as long as membership fees are paid.
Joining CopyProTraders
CopyProTraders affiliate membership is $99 a month.
Note that while they are calculated in USD, all CopyProTrader membership fee payments and commissions are paid in bitcoin.
Conclusion
After relocating to Vietnam and getting his scam on promoting E-Platform 365, Antione McBay tried to go legitimate with Quiari.
That didn’t work out so here we are with another MLM crypto scam – except this time McBay is running the show.
CopyProTraders combines securities fraud with pyramid scheme recruitment.
Everyone signs up as an affiliate and pays a $99 a month fee… in bitcoin of course because good luck getting your money back.
Anyone who hasn’t earned $600 is locked out of commissions. Seeing as you can’t earn commissions until you’ve “earned $600”, presumably this is $600 in passive returns.
Just so there’s no confusion, here’s the exact copy from CopyProTrading’s marketing material:
AFFILIATE: Any person that chooses to participate in the Copy Pro Traders Compensation Plan and has earned at least $600.
CopyProTraders’ securities fraud takes place by way of automated trading.
The Copy Pro Traders service may result in trades in on your behalf.
You should understand that is highly speculative and that you could sustain significant losses exceeding the amount used to copy a trader or traders as a result of the following:
It will involve automated trading execution whereby trades are opened and closed in your account without your manual intervention.
For the “bUt ThE cRyPtO iS iN mY eXcHaNgE aCcOuNt!” crowd, here’s the Howey Test definition of an investment contract:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Howey case and subsequent case law have found that an “investment contract” exists when there is the investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others.
Whether your invested crypto is stored on an exchange or not is irrelevant, it’s pooled under a common enterprise (CryptoProTraders).
And this is done solely on the ‘expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others’ (trading activity).
Antione McBay’s game-plan seems to be hide out in Vietnam whilst committing securities fraud, namely in the US.
As I write this, Alexa estimates 80% of traffic to CopyProTraders’ website originates from the US.
For CryptoProTraders affiliates in the US, know that promotion of securities fraud is also illegal.
Failing the SEC or regulators in Vietnam taking action, the other outcome of the “cRyPtO iS iN mY eXcHaNgE aCcOuNt” model is rigged trades.
The most recent example of this playing out was iQuandex’s exit-scam.
In addition to securities and pyramid fraud, CryptoProTraders is also violating the FTC Act.
The “our traders” section of CryptoProTraders website provides grainy photos of individuals and fluffy bios.
No verifiable evidence or trading data, with respect to alleged trading for CopyProTraders is provided.
Nor does CryptoProTraders provide consumers any historical trading results, or information about who exactly is behind their automated trading software.
These are all potential violations of the FTC Act with respect to marketing disclosures.
In addition to losing cryptocurrency through rigged trades, the majority of participants in MLM pyramid schemes are guaranteed to lose money.
Be it trading or pyramid recruitment, only a select few are making money in CopyProTraders.
Be wary of CopyProTraders promoters dismissing/ignoring securities fraud, and representing they are in profit over the short-term.