Alan Friedland’s Ponzi scam, NRGY, has long ago failed.
It was a classic Ponzi scheme that never recovered from the first withdrawal theft of monies by early participants.
Investors in NRGY are now being directed to StarStake, a defunct NFT platform that just started a fraudulent investment plan.
StarStake bills itself as a “royalty marketplace based on NFT.”
I’m not interested in entering the market because the investing side of StarStake has nothing to do with it.
MNTR tokens/coins (I’m going with tokens) are crucial to StarStake’s latest Ponzi scam.
Affiliates of StarStake each invest $100. In exchange, users receive $100 in MNTR tokens and a “Mission” NFT.
MNTR token investments are locked up for 36 months. StarStake affiliate investors will earn 50% of MNTR tokens invested in each month for the first twelve months.
50% a month may be absurd, but keep in mind that MNTR tokens are created out of thin air at little to no cost (I believe MNTR is an ERC-20 shit token).
What isn’t absurd is the securities fraud performed as a result of this method, which effectively turns StarStake into a Ponzi scheme.
Early MNTR investors, the majority of whom possess CompCoin and NRGY, have already been onboarded. Each month, they receive 50% of the invested MNTR token money and hope to pay out monies invested by following affiliate investors bagholders.
Other than additional investment, StarStake has no confirmed external source of revenue. MNTR is a closed-loop smart-contract Ponzi scam, similar to NRGY, NRGYGo, and BuilderDEFI before it.
StarStake’s MNTR scheme mixes referral commissions with a transaction bonus pool in the MLM space.
StarStake provides referral commissions on MNTR investment down two tiers of recruiting (unilevel):
level 1 (affiliates individually recruited) – 10%
level 2 – 5%
Affiliates that spend $2500 or more earn shares in a bonus pool comprised of an unspecified proportion of StarStake transaction fees received.
That’s all. That is the latest MNTR “Mission NFT” Ponzi scheme from StarStake.
In terms of how we get here, BehindMLM last checked in on NRGY in February. Friedland was attempting to launch BuilderDefi at the time.
Today, SimilarWeb records little traffic to BuilderDefi’s website, indicating that the third NRGY Ponzi scam iteration has failed.
BuilderDefi guaranteed a weekly return of 5% on BuilderToken investments, with the initial commitment locked in for another forty weeks.
In comparison, StarStake’s MNTR plan boosts the weekly return to 50% while extending the original investment period to 36 months (156 weeks).
While Alan Friedland owns StarStake, Chris Hawk is the CEO and face of the scam.
Hawk addressed the NRGY -> StarStake change in an unlisted StarStake marketing video:
[1:44] If you’re an NRGY supporter, if you’ve used the NRGY platform… We imported the database to StarStake after you alerted us about it.
NRGY affiliate genealogies are linked to the wallet with which NRGY affiliate investors initially joined up.
Here’s Hawk’s breakdown of StarStake’s MNTR investment strategy from the same video;
[12:44] Those Minter tokens are protected by the smart contract. In some ways, it’s an investment, because it’s locked up for three years. Which will pass quickly.
We anticipate that MNTR Coin will be performing well by the end of three years.
But keep in mind that you earn those 50% incentives every month. That is 50% of the Minter tokens. Every month, 50% of the Minter tokens you received at mint will be dropped.
People have told us that they will buy one hundred at a time because of this offer.
At the time of publishing, neither StarStake, Alan Friedland, nor Chris Hawk were SEC-registered.
NRGY has been tracked by BehindMLM since its inception in early 2021. Friedland originally concealed his role in the fraud, which unraveled after BehindMLM exposed him as the proprietor of NRGY.
Friedland sought to keep a low profile since he was the subject of a CFTC commodities fraud lawsuit.
Friedland was charged by the CFTC for CompCoin and FinTech Investment Group, a Ponzi scheme based on a fictitious ART trading bot.
Friedland paid $1.8 million to resolve the CFTC’s fraud claims in April 2022.
Friedland’s deception has continued notwithstanding the settlement of one regulatory complaint. StarStake debuted as part of NRGY in December 2021. (screenshot below is from late 2021).
StarStake failed, causing the MNTR investment plan to relaunch earlier this month.
Outside of the MNTR investment plan, all I’ll say about StarStake is that it’s an infringement case waiting to happen.
While BehindMLM isn’t following StarStake outside of its fraudulent MLM investment plan, YouTuber No Pants Profits has a more in-depth look at the company if you’re interested.
Hawk has indicated plans to offer new investment schemes as part of the StarStake NFT “series” when Mission NFT investment runs out.
Hawk states that as of November 16th, around $630,000 had been invested in MNTR.
StarStake’s MNTR passive investing program is a securities under US law. This transfers regulatory authority from the CFTC to the SEC, and perhaps the DOJ if wire fraud and money laundering charges are brought.
It remains to be seen whether US authorities take additional action against Friedland.
17th of November, 2022 – No Pants Profits reports that he has received death threats from promoter Duane Noble as a result of the publishing of this piece.
