Tradeknology operates in the trading MLM niche. The company launched in 2020.
Tradeknology is based out of Texas. Heading up the company are co-founders Manoah McClendon, Jorge Raziel and Domingo Silvas.
According to McClendon’s Tradeknology corporate bio, as of 2020 he’d “been a successful trader for the last 11 years”.
I wasn’t able to verify that. Nor was I able to verify McClendon has any corporate experience, MLM related or otherwise.
What I did find was Manoah McClendon Ministries, which McClendon was heavily involved in till around 2016. That’s when McClendon reinvented himself as a trading bro.
This began with the “Houston Currency Traders”, which was what McClendon called his Wealth Generators downline.
McClendon has nuked anything that ties him to Wealth Generators, but there are still some snippets if you dig deep enough.
In this May 2016 video titled “Why Wealth Generators Demetrius Jones Answers“, Jones claims to have met McClendon “about nine years ago” at the time.
Jones states when they first met he and McClendon were both “flipping houses”. Presumably this preceded McClendon’s stint as a pastor.
Jones goes on to explain McClendon eventually recruited him into his Wealth Generators downline.
McClendon sat atop a “Houston Currency Traders” Wealth Generators downline, that Jones would eventually help him spread to Memphis, Chicago, Nashville and Atlanta.
Wealth Generators’ parent company Investview was fined $150,000 for fraud related to Wealth Generators in 2018.
Turns out Wealth Generators wasn’t so much about forex, as it was dumping money in a passive investment opportunity and earning pyramid scheme commissions.
Getting back to McClendon, by the end of 2016 he’d launched SmartTrade Academy.
This marks the beginning of McClendon not just building an MLM downline, but running his own grift.
Religion played a big part of that grift:
In 2017 McClendon became a crypto bro through Coins of Change.
As reviewed here on BehindMLM, Coins of Change was a bitcoin-based gifting scheme.
It was in Coins of Change that McClendon would meet his Tradeknology co-founders Jorge Raziel and Domingo Silvas.
Together with Edmond Lee, Raziel and Silvas ran the official Coins of Change FaceBook group. A BehindMLM reader pegged Silvas as the owner of the scam.
By the end of 2017 and right in the middle of the late-year crypto bubble, McClendon integrated crypto into SmartTrade Academy with “SmartCoins”.
Coins of Change would go on to inevitably collapse in 2018.
That prompted McClendon to launch “Cryptoknology”. He also began referring to himself as a “Master Trader”.
By now religion had mostly disappeared from McClendon’s social timeline.
The last post to Manoah McClendon Ministries’ FaceBook page was in October 2019.
In mid 2020 McClendon revealed Tradeknology, essentially a reboot of Cryptoknology with a different name.
McClendon also started referring to himself as a “Grand Master Trader”.
Based on SimilarWeb traffic analysis, today Tradeknology is being promoted across the UAE (51%) and US (49%).
Read on for a full review of Tradeknology’s MLM opportunity.
Tradeknology’s Products
Tradeknology markets trading themed monthly subscription memberships.
In official Tradeknology marketing presentations, Regional Vice President Gregory Hayden compares the subscriptions to an Ivy League education in trading.
Our particular trading education course is some of the best out there in the market.
You would actually have to go to an Ivy League university to receive these kinds of courses.
And that will cost you well over seventy something thousand dollars. That’s documented numbers.
Tradeknology’s monthly subscriptions span four tiers from Associate Pack to Meta Membership.
Associate Pack
Tradeknology’s Associate Pack costs $74 and then $59 a month.
An Associate Pack membership subscription provides access to:
- the Tradeknology app
- recordings
- basic trading strategies and
- an introduction to Tradeknology’s Forex University
Primary Package
Tradeknology’s Primary Package costs $159 and then $129 a month.
A Primary Package membership subscription provides access to
- the Associate Pack tier
- live zoom classes
- 1 Hour Work Day “Scalping EA” and
- “trade ideas”
VIP Package
Tradeknology’s VIP Package membership costs $299 and then $249 a month.
A VIP Package membership subscription provides access to
- the Primary Package tier
- 1 Hour Work Day “Crypto EA”
- 1 Hour Work Day “Indices EA”
- “VIP trade ideas” and
- VIP Live Trading
Meta Package
Tradeknology’s Meta Package membership costs $599 and then $499 a month.
A Meta Package membership subscription provides access to
- the VIP Package tier
- 1 Hour Work Day “London/NY EA”
- 1 Hour Work Day “Gold EA”
- a Crypto Mastermind held twice a year
- an “exclusive NFT/Metaverse opp” and
- “so much more”
At time of publication the Associate Pack and Meta Package memberships are coming on July 1st.
Given the proximity of this review to that date and inclusion of the membership in current Tradeknology marketing, I’m including them in this review as already launched.
Tradeknology’s Compensation Plan
Tradeknology do not provide consumers with compensation details on their website.
The following breakdown is based on an “opportunity presentation”, uploaded to Tradeknology’s official YouTube channel on June 9th, 2022.
Tradeknology Affiliate Ranks
There are nine affiliate ranks within Tradeknology’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Achiever – sign up as and personally refer and maintain 3 member subscribers
- Influencer – maintain 3 personally referred member subscribers and generate 500 GV a month
- Mentor 1000 – maintain 3 personally referred member subscribers and generate 1500 GV a month
- Master Builder 2000 – personally refer and maintain 4 member subscribers and generate 3500 GV a month
- Elite Builder 5000 – personally refer and maintain 5 member subscribers and generate 9975 GV a month
- Lifestyle Ambassador – personally refer and maintain 6 member subscribers and generate 20,000 GV a month
- Freedom Ambassador – personally refer and maintain 7 member subscribers and generate 39,975 GV a month
- Elite Ambassador – personally refer and maintain 8 member subscribers and generate 99,975 GV a month
- Global Ambassador – personally refer and maintain 9 member subscribers and generate 200,000 GV a month
Member subscribers are either retail customers or recruited affiliates with an active Tradeknology membership subscription.
GV stands for “Group Volume”. Group Volume is generated via member subscription sales.
- Primary Membership subscription = 75 GV a month
- VIP Membership subscription = 125 GV a month
- Meta Membership subscription = 250 GV a month
Tradeknology tracks GV via a binary compensation structure.
A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):
The first level of the binary team houses two positions. The second level of the binary team is generated by splitting these first two positions into another two positions each (4 positions).
Subsequent levels of the binary team are generated as required, with each new level housing twice as many positions as the previous level.
Positions in the binary team are filled via direct and indirect recruitment of affiliates. Note there is no limit to how deep a binary team can grow.
Rank qualification GV must be split evenly across both sides of an affiliate’s binary team.
E.g. Freedom Ambassadors require 39,975 GV a month. This is broken down into a minimum 19,988 GV required from both sides of the binary team.
Member Subscription Commissions
Tradeknology pays a $15 to $120 a month commission per member subscription sale sold.
This counts member subscriptions to referred retail customers and recruited affiliates.
Specific member subscription commission tier amounts are not provided.
Residual Commissions
Tradeknology’s residual commissions are tied to rank:
- Achievers do not earn residual commissions
- Influencers earn $125 a week
- Mentor 1000s earn $250 a week
- Master Builder 2000s earn $500 a week
- Elite Builder 5000s earn $1250 a week
- Lifestyle Ambassadors earn $2500 a week
- Freedom Ambassadors earn $6250 a week
- Elite Ambassadors earn $12,500 a week
- Global Ambassadors earn $25,000 a week
Rank Achievement Bonus
Tradeknology rewards affiliates for qualifying at specific ranks with a $10,000 to $1,500,000 Rank Achievement Bonus.
Specifics are not provided.
Car Bonus
Tradeknology affiliates can earn up to $25,000 a month via the Car Bonus.
Other than the Car Bonus being tied to rank, specifics are not provided.
Joining Tradeknology
Tradeknology affiliate membership is $30 a month.
Tradeknology’s affiliate membership is pitched as an “additional” fee, so I believe affiliates must also maintain a monthly membership subscription:
- $59 a month Associate Pack
- $99 a month Primary Membership
- $199 a month VIP Membership
- $499 a month Meta Membership
Tradeknology Conclusion
There are just enough trading recommendations on Manoah McClendon’s FaceBook feed to suggest familiarity with forex and crypto trading.
How does that translate with respect to building an MLM opportunity around trading? No idea.
With respect to the FTC Act, Tradeknology has pretty major disclosure problem.
This starts with failure to disclose any substantial information about “Tradeknology University”. “Experienced educators”, “world class leaders” and a “master trading team” are all referenced, but nobody is named.
This makes it impossible for consumers to make an informed choice about the academic side of Tradeknology.
Compensation details are also withheld from consumers, further making it difficult to evaluate Tradeknology as an MLM opportunity.
Certainly the backgrounds of Tradeknology’s founders doesn’t lend itself to giving them any benefit of the doubt.
Your best bet, as a prospective Tradeknology customer or affiliate, is to ask your potential upline for proof of trading. What you’re looking for is revenue generated via trading, that either matches or exceeds their monthly membership fees.
I’m extremely doubtful if any significant percentage of Tradeknology member subscribers would meet this threshold.
With respect to due-diligence, this is important to establish as it’s the ultimate litmus test with respect to the education Tradeknology represents is a university equivalent.
If the trading revenue isn’t there, why would you sign up as a retail customer? And if you’re being pitched on the income opportunity, that’d spell out your typical MLM pyramid scheme.
Come July 1st Tradeknology is jumping on the NFT “metaverse” grift bandwagon. Neither NFTs or tHe MeTaVeRsE have anything to do with Tradeknology.
The “exclusive NFT/Metaverse opp” is of particular concern, as if there’s anything remotely resembling a passive investment opportunity that introduces securities fraud.
Nothing I saw in the existing Tradeknology offering suggested automated trading of any kind was possible, so at least there Tradeknology appears compliant.
All in all Tradenology presents itself as an MLM opportunity that’s gone through several names and reboots over the years, and is run by people with questionable backgrounds.
Due-diligence is made difficult, they’re using crypto buzzwords to double upper tier membership fees and I haven’t seen anyone provide verifiable evident their trading activity has exceeded membership fees.
Approach with caution.