In an Form 10-K annual report published a few hours ago, Investview has revealed a $150,000 fine by the CFTC.

Specific details are sketchy, other than the company ‘received a subpoena from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission‘ in February 2018.

Rather than fight the matter and clear their name, Investview settled for a $150,000 fine. The company also agreed to ‘not to act as an unregistered Commodities Trading Advisor in the future‘.

I was hoping for more specific details from the CFTC, however as at the time of publication the proposed settlement still appears to be pending approval.

As such there’s no formal record of the settlement on the CFTC website yet.

If word on the grapevine is to be believed, the CFTC took issue with Investview providing a “mirror trading” service to Wealth Generators affiliates.

This saw Wealth Generators affiliates able to mirror provided trades on Facebook, which the CFTC interpreted as Investview providing investment advice.

In March 2018 Investview announced it was changing the name of Wealth Generators to Kuvera Global.

Whether the name-change is related to the CFTC’s investigation into Wealth Generators is unclear.

A 2017 Form 8-K filing by Investview details a “Material Definitive Agreement” between it and Wealth Generators.

A disclosure toward the end of the filing reveals this is not the first time Wealth Generators has had a run in with the CFTC.

In May 2016, Wealth Generators, LLC, received a written request for production of documents from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) that appeared to have been focused on claims made by Wealth Generators about the performance of its trading recommendations.

Wealth Generators responded to that request for production and to several follow-up requests, with the last response from Wealth Generators having been submitted in November, 2016.

Wealth Generators has received no further communications from the CFTC since that date.

In light of Wealth Generators entering the cryptocurrency mining market in late 2017, BehindMLM has been critical of Investview failing to acknowledge its Kuvera Wealth mining opportunity in its SEC filings.

Investview’s recent 10-K filing does mention its cryptocurrency mining operations, but fails to go into specifics regarding the passive investment opportunity.

We offer Crypto Mining Packages that consist of computer/GPU hardware, operation and maintenance services to provide individuals access to crypto mining.

Our mining hardware (hosting) facility is arranged through contractual partnership and located in Romania.

Each GPU processing card is specific to the package purchased, is individually serial numbered, and the customer may request their hardware to be shipped to them at any time.

There is no guarantee or estimate of mining output provided as mining conditions change constantly and crypto currency is subject to a number of risks associated with emerging markets.

We believe our mining services which are physically housed, monitored and maintained in a dedicated facility eliminates variables associated with other mining services that are typically cloud based.

Another service referenced in Investview’s filing is Ryze.

RYZE is an algorithm based on supply side objectives.

The algorithm identifies anomalies in currency pair transactions and enters positions that will ultimately be sold into large volume liquidations.

These transactions can last intraday, multiple days, weeks or months. RYZE is made available to international clients.

A far more simpler explanation of Ryze is that it’s a forex auto-trading bot run by Travis Bott.

Last year we covered Ryze in depth, including brief partnerships with Divvee and Hodo Global.

Divvee have since moved on and rebranded as Nui.

A Contribution and Exchange Agreement dated October 20th, 2017, details the sale to Investview of Hodo Global’s “contract rights” with a “wholesale travel organization”, as well as the Hodo Global affiliate database.

Investview’s access to Ryze is detailed in an Exclusive License Agreement with Binnacle Research Marketing and a Product Contribution Agreement with Priam Technologies – both signed off on by Travis Bott.

Bott appears to be running his various shell companies as Seychelles corporations. Because y’know, legitimacy.

In the Binnacle Research Marketing agreement, here’s how Ryze is more accurately described;

Ryze is a software containing an algorithm designed for forex trading.

The Ryze software contains a specific set of clearly defined instructions used by computers programmed to follow such instructions in placing trades in order to generate profits.

Taking a step back, through Kuvera Global affiliates gain access to two passive investment opportunities.

Crypto mining sees affiliates invest up to $4999.99 a time with Kuvera Global, on the promise of a daily passive ROI.

Ryze is an automated forex trading bot opportunity, which Kuvera Global only provide to non-US affiliates (hint hint).

Not withstanding Kuvera Global and parent company Investview are US companies.

Despite providing its affiliates with access to two blatant securities offerings, Investview insist they don’t.

We have positioned the Company as a knowledge provider and educator, which seeks to augment a user’s informed decision-making process, rather than act as a conductor of investment decisions or a representative of investment services.

As such, our activities do not fall within the scope of securities industry regulation.

Um, what?

How the hell are a completely passive cryptocurrency mining and an auto-trading currency bot opportunity not investment services?

And if that’s not dodgy enough for you, consider this Product Contribution Agreement between Westmyn Technology Services and Investview.

The agreement is dated November 13th, 2017 and signed off on by Travis Bott, Director of Westmyn Technology Services and Ryan Smith, CEO of Investview.

Yup. That’s the same Travis Bott who owns and operates Ryze, Binnacle Research Marketing and Priam Technologies – none of which are registered to offer securities in the US.

Despite Investview’s representations it doesn’t offer cloud mining, the Westmyn agreement sees it agree to provide Investview

certain valuable contract rights to products and to provide a cloud mining agreement, in exchange for issuance of stock in the Company and for the opportunity to earn-out additional Company stock.

Cloud mining that isn’t cloud mining. Go figure.

Bearing in mind the November 2017 agreement date, we covered Wealth Generators’ entry into crypto mining towards the end of the December.

As per Investview’s June 2018 10-K filing, there are no other crypto mining partnerships referenced.

So if we assume Westmyn Technology Services are the provider of Kuvera Wealth’s cryptocurrency mining services – two discrepancies arise.

The first is the location of the alleged cryptocurrency mining rigs used to pay Kuvera Global affiliates a passive ROI.

According to Investview’s July 2018 10-K filing;

Our mining hardware (hosting) facility is arranged through contractual partnership and located in Romania.

The November 2017 agreement with Westmyn however cites alleged mining locations in Iceland and China.

The second discrepancy is the nature of the investment opportunity.

The Westmyn agreement reads like any other crypto cloud mining contract;

WESTMŸN currently owns certain mining equipment for use in mining cryptocurrencies.

WESTMŸN will enter into a cloud mining lease agreement with (Investview) and allow (Investview) to lease its mining equipment at a preferred rate.

In their 10-K filing, here’s how Investview describe their mining contract service;

Each GPU processing card is specific to the package purchased, is individually serial numbered, and the customer may request their hardware to be shipped to them at any time.

If I may be so bold to point out the obvious, the reason Investview are layering on the pseudo-compliance with respect to their Kuvera Wealth offering, is because there are already examples of cloud mining being regulated as a security in the US.

What Investview’s pseudo-compliance fails to take into consideration however, is that there’s no material difference between individual GPU card baloney and cloud mining.

Investview and it’s Kuvera companies serve as a common enterprise, through which its affiliates invest funds directly into, on the promise of an entirely passive ROI.

With respect to securities regulation, that’s as far as the SEC or CFTC need to go.

And this is crucial, because without its unregistered security crypto mining offering, by all appearances Investview and Kuvera are toast.

For the year ended March 31st, 2018, Investview recorded losses totaling $14.9 million dollars.

Our auditors have expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern given our recurring net losses, negative cash flows from operations and the limited amount of funds on our balance sheet.

Revenue generated for the same period increased 39%, which was primarily driven by the introduction of crypto cloud mining securities.

Revenue, net, increased $5,044,485, or 39%, from $12,872,947 for the year ended March 31, 2017 to $17,917,432 for the year ended March 31, 2018.

The majority of the increase ($4,017,853) can be explained by our introduction of cryptocurrency mining services as a new product.

The remainder of the increase was due to a decrease in chargebacks and refunds from the prior year.

Kuvera Global’s subscriptions, the majority of which are believed to be held by affiliates, had an insignificant impact on Investview’s revenue.

And bear in mind, Wealth Generators only started marketing their crypto cloud mining packages on or around December, 2017.

Roughly 80% of Investview’s annual revenue increase was generated in the last quarter of their reporting year.

How long is Investview’s blatant disregard for US securities law going to continue unchecked? Who knows.

I’ll leave you with a final thought, that being that if any of this was legal, why set it up through shady offshore companies, contradictory regulatory filings and zero specific disclosure regarding actual mining hardware purportedly used – as well as associated costs?

Since inception in 2005, Investview has accumulated losses of over $20 million dollars.

In the absence of an alternative explanation, I suppose the staggering amount of money lost goes some way to explain why Investview are willing to try anything.

Legal or otherwise.

 

Update 3rd July 2018 – An affiliate marketing video has revealed Kuvera Global are paying affiliates a weekly ROI through an ethereum account engaged in cloud mining.

This pretty much destroys any claim Kuvera Global are providing mining services to their affiliates on an individual basis.