Treasure Island fails to supply possession or govt data on its web site.
Treasure Island operates from three identified web site domains:
- treasureislandnetwork.com – registered in October 2023, personal registration final up to date on September 18th, 2024
- ticoin.io – registered in July 2024, personal registration final up to date on February twenty fifth, 2025
- watchtreasureisland.com – registered in Could 2021, registration final up to date June 1st, 2024 by proprietor Join Social by way of Manitoba, Canada tackle
As per its LinkedIn profile…
…Join Social LLC is
an Revolutionary Digital Advertising Firm serving to retailers to make/lower your expenses by rising their buyer base.
The web site area supplied on Join Social’s LinkedIn profile is disabled however the firm seems to have moved to “iamconnect.com”.
“Iamconnect.com” was registered in January 2018. The registration was final up to date on January sixth, 2025 and lists Join Social LLC, by way of a Nevada tackle, because the area’s proprietor.
Heading up Join Social is Manitoba resident Brett Nicholson:
Over on LinkedIn Nicholson additionally cites himself as “proprietor and COO of Treasure Island Productions LLC”:
I’m proud to be a accomplice in an progressive new Actuality Tv present – Treasure Island.
Nicholson doesn’t seem to have an MLM historical past. Previous to Join Social and Treasure Island, Nicholson seems to have been concerned in real-estate and constructing provides.
Why Nicholson’s possession of Treasure Island is just not disclosed on the corporate’s web site is unclear.
As all the time, if an MLM firm is just not overtly upfront about who’s working or owns it, suppose lengthy and exhausting about becoming a member of and/or handing over any cash.
Treasure Island’s Merchandise
Treasure Island has no retailable services or products.
Associates are solely in a position to market Treasure Island affiliate membership itself.
Treasure Island’s Compensation Plan
Treasure Island associates spend money on $100 items. That is performed on the promise of a “minimal 50% return within the first 12 months”.
Extra “passive residual earnings” is pitched by way of “30 completely different merchandise that can proceed to pay you for years to come back”.
The MLM facet of Treasure Island pays on recruitment of affiliate traders.
Treasure Island tracks downline by way of a unilevel compensation construction.
A unilevel compensation construction locations an affiliate on the prime of a unilevel workforce, with each personally recruited affiliate positioned instantly underneath them (degree 1):
If any degree 1 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on degree 2 of the unique affiliate’s unilevel workforce.
If any degree 2 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on degree 3 and so forth and so forth down a theoretical infinite variety of ranges.
There doesn’t look like any depth restrict to a Treasure Island affiliate’s unilevel workforce.
Every $100 unit funding made throughout an affiliate’s unilevel workforce counts as a share in a month-to-month bonus pool, which Treasure Island represents is made up of fifty% of company-wide funding.
Shares reset each month however bonus pool commissions look like paid out weekly.
Becoming a member of Treasure Island
Treasure Island affiliate membership is free.
Full participation within the hooked up earnings alternative requires a minimal $100 funding.
Treasure Island Conclusion
Treasure Island markets what it refers to as a “mortgage alternative”;
We’ve created a mortgage alternative for anybody who desires to take part within the enterprise alternative.
The minimal mortgage quantity is $100 USD and there’s no most mortgage quantity. (All loans are required to be in $100 increments.)
Placing apart any legalities pertaining to a US firm soliciting loans from the general public, if Treasure Island was soliciting loans they’d must be ruled by contracts with very particular phrases defining rates of interest and many others.
Each utilized for a mortgage or credit score from a financial institution? Yeah, that degree of documentation.
With Treasure Island we’ve received customers dumping $100 into the corporate on the promise of 150% or extra inside 12 months.
What Treasure Island is definitely providing customers is an open-ended unregistered funding alternative.
Underneath US regulation the Howey Take a look at is utilized to find out the existence of an funding contract.
The Howey Take a look at is 4 standards an asset should meet to qualify as an “funding contract.”
If the asset is an “funding of cash in a typical enterprise, with an inexpensive expectation of earnings to be derived from the efforts of others”.
Right here’s how the Howey Take a look at appears when utilized to Treasure Island:
- Treasure Island LLC solicits $100 unit investments from customers (“an funding of cash”);
- Treasure Island LLC is a “frequent enterprise”;
- funding into Treasure Island is made on the promise of a minimal 150% ROI inside 12 months (“an inexpensive expectation of earnings”); and
- Treasure Island LLC’s returns are represented to be tied into its deliberate actuality TV present (i.e. ROI income is “derived from the efforts of others”)
Satisfying the Howey Take a look at means, versus be a “mortgage alternative”, Treasure Island’s providing as an funding contract.
The existence of an funding contract constitutes a securities providing, requiring Treasure Island to register with the SEC.
A number of hits for “Treasure Island” pop up in a search of the SEC’s EDGAR database. None of them have something to do with Treasure Island the MLM firm as reviewed right here.
Join Social, by way of a Nevada shell firm, has made two filings with the SEC.
The primary submitting is dated April third, 2023 and particulars a deliberate securities providing of 10,000 “most well-liked membership items” for $1 every.
The second submitting is dated January third, 2024 and withdraws Join Social’s preliminary providing submitting.
Having confirmed there are not any SEC filings pertaining to Treasure Island’s $100 unit funding scheme, we will affirm the corporate is providing unregistered securities.
Providing unregistered securities constitutes securities fraud as per the Securities and Change Act.
Along with committing securities fraud, with nothing marketed or bought to retail clients, the MLM facet of Treasure Island operates as a pyramid scheme.
Recycling of investor funds to pay month-to-month/weekly shares, tied to recruitment funding exercise, additionally raises the query of Treasure Island’s assured 150% in 12 months ROI.
The unique Treasure Island actuality present was a “gangster’s paradise” theme…
…which was presupposed to premier final yr:
That didn’t occur. So what’s modified since Treasure Island first emerged in early 2024?
So far as I can inform, solely the unit funding scheme and hooked up MLM alternative.
That is based mostly on Treasure Island’s unit funding and MLM advertising and marketing doc being created on January twentieth, 2025.
Any share of invested funds getting used to fulfill Treasure Island’s promised 150% or extra annual returns would represent a Ponzi scheme.
As with all MLM Ponzi schemes, as soon as affiliate recruitment dries up so too will new funding.
This can starve Treasure Island of ROI income, finally prompting a collapse.
The maths behind Ponzi schemes ensures that after they collapse, the vast majority of members lose cash.
One factor to be careful for with Treasure Island’s collapse is its hooked up “treasure island coin” (TI).
So far as I can inform there’s no separate funding alternative hooked up to TI (but), however that doesn’t imply returns and withdrawals may very well be switched to TI solely.
Treasure Island generates TI out of skinny air, probably seeing them in a position to fulfill promised 150%+ returns over 12 months.
After all as sufficient Treasure Island associates start cashing out their TI, they’ll quickly notice they’ve been left bagholding yet one more nugatory MLM Ponzi coin.
This may occasionally or might not occur. Treasure Island might simply as simply collapse and disappear with everybody’s cash. Or the SEC might step in a shut the rip-off down.
Keep tuned for our subsequent unscripted Treasure Island episode, airing free proper right here on BehindMLM.