ThornCoin Review: THRN points ICO lending Ponzi scheme
ThornCoin provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.
The ThornCoin website domain (“thorncoin.com”) was privately registered on December 21st, 2017.
As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.
ThornCoin Products
ThornCoin has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market ThornCoin affiliate membership itself.
The ThornCoin Compensation Plan
ThornCoin affiliates purchase THRN points from the company’s anonymous owners.
ThornCoin sell THRN points to affiliates for between 50 cents to $1.20 each.
Once acquired, THRN points are “lent” back to ThornCoin on the promise of an advertised ROI:
- invest $100 to $1000 and receive a monthly ROI of up to 43% for 260 days
- invest $1001 to $5000 and receive a monthly ROI of up to 43% plus 0.05% bonus daily ROI for 180 days
- invest $5001 to $10,000 and receive a monthly ROI of up to 43% plus 0.1% bonus daily ROI for 160 days
- invest $10,001 to $20,000 and receive a monthly ROI of up to 43% plus 0.15% bonus daily ROI for 150 days
- invest $20,001 or more and receive a monthly ROI of up to 43% plus 0.2% bonus daily ROI for 120 days
Funds invested are “locked” for the following minimum period:
- $100 to $1000 invested = 180 days
- $1001 to $5000 invested = 90 days
- $5001 to $10,000 invested = 80 days
- $10,001 to $20,000 invested = 75 days
- $20,001 or more invested = 60 days
If a ThornCoin affiliates opts to withdraw before the locked period they are charged a 25% fee.
ThornCoin pay referral commissions on invested funds down three levels of recruitment:
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – 8%
- level 2 – 4%
- level 3 – 1%
Joining ThornCoin
ThornCoin affiliate membership is free, however free affiliates can only earn referral commissions.
Full participation in the ThornCoin MLM opportunity requires a minimum $100 investment.
Conclusion
ThornCoin claim to generate external ROI revenue through “arbitrage, trading-bot, marketing, etc.”
Our trading strategy stack has several solid components which aim to ensure a stable passive income for our investors.
At its core there is an algorithmic trading software that utilizes a complex technical analysis to make split second decisions on what trades to take.
The power of AI can combine machine learning, technical analysis and fundamental data extraction into one powerful trading tool.
There is of course no evidence of any such tool provided. Nor is there any evidence of external ROI revenue being used to pay ThornCoin affiliates.
The only verifiable source of revenue entering ThornCoin is new investment.
Using new investment to pay existing affiliates a ROI makes ThornCoin a Ponzi scheme. That’s on top of pyramid commissions paid out on affiliate recruitment.
Lending ICO Ponzis like ThornCoin play out as follows:
Admins (who are typically anonymous) offload worthless pre-generated points in exchange for real money. In this case it’s THRN points.
The admins then use some of this money to pay promised ROIs for as long as new affiliates sign up.
Once affiliate recruitment dries up so does the ROI reserve.
When a predetermined threshold is reached, the anonymous ThornCoin admins pull a runner with what’s left.
Early ThornCoin investors make a bit of money (mostly via recruitment of new investors). But same as any other Ponzi scheme, the reality of such scams is that the majority of participants eventually lose money.
Of particular note is ThornCoin claiming they prohibit US investors from participating in their lending ICO;
Due to regulations in the USA and a lot of uncertainty coming from that region, unfortunately we do not accept US residents.
Alexa however estimate that the US is currently the largest source of traffic to the ThornCoin website.
Putting aside Thorncoin’s regulatory lip-service, neither ICOs, cryptocurrency arbitrage, trading or “etc.” is illegal in the US.
The only reason an MLM company launching an ICO would prohibit US investors is because they’re not doing what they say they are.
As the recent BitConnect collapse showed, once the ICO lending Ponzi gig is up the majority of investors lose money.
Keep up the great work, Oz. Always happy to send your articles to others; especially new crypto-investors. Too many new scams sharking after naive prey.
Do you have a FB group or reddit? Not sure if those would benefit you much, but might be on-ramps for directing people to behindmlm.
No time. A ton of work goes into this site leaving no room for keeping up with social media profiles.