The website for 2by3 Matrix Club, registered privately on February 17, 2017, offered no information about its ownership or operators. This anonymity created immediate suspicion, especially given the scheme's close ties to a prior venture that failed quickly.
Earlier in the same month, a related scheme named 2x2 Matrix Club launched, seemingly using identical backend infrastructure. Alexa traffic data indicated the 2x2 Matrix Club site flopped, attracting few participants. The rapid introduction of 2by3 Matrix Club suggested its administrators attempted to salvage their model with a new name and structure.
2by3 Matrix Club sells nothing tangible. It provides no retail products or services. Its sole offering is affiliate membership, which allows participants to market the scheme itself to new recruits. This lack of a genuine product or service is a hallmark of a gifting or pyramid scheme.
Affiliates exchange bitcoin among themselves through a 2x3 matrix structure. Each participant sits at the top of their own matrix. Two positions branch directly beneath them, forming level one. These two positions expand to four on level two, which then expands to eight positions on level three. Each of these tiers functions as a separate gifting cycle.
Entering the system requires an initial gift of 0.02 BTC to the person who recruited you. This payment qualifies the participant to receive 0.02 BTC from two individuals they recruit into their own level one. To advance to level two, participants must gift 0.03 BTC to an upline member. This opens the opportunity to receive 0.03 BTC from four recruits filling level two positions. Further participation in level three costs 0.06 BTC, promising returns of 0.06 BTC from eight recruits.
Full participation across all three matrix levels therefore requires a total gifting outlay of 0.11 BTC. The scheme's website is minimal, consisting of an explanation page, a signup form, and a login portal. This bare-bones presentation is common among such programs.
Like all bitcoin gifting programs of this type, the primary beneficiaries are the anonymous administrators. They often pre-load positions at the top of the matrix, ensuring they collect pass-up payments from the earliest participants at each tier. A small number of early adopters might break even or even see a slight profit. The vast majority of later participants, however, experience financial losses.
Gifting schemes depend on a continuous influx of new recruits to pay off earlier participants. Recruitment inevitably slows and eventually stalls. When this happens, the flow of bitcoin gifts dries up, leaving the majority of members unable to recoup their initial payments. The administrators then disappear with the accumulated bitcoin.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States, alongside consumer protection agencies globally, considers such gifting schemes to be illegal pyramid schemes. These operations are characterized by their reliance on recruitment payments rather than legitimate product sales. The use of cryptocurrency, while offering a layer of perceived anonymity to operators, does not exempt these schemes from regulatory scrutiny or legal action. Law enforcement agencies have developed methods to trace cryptocurrency transactions and identify those behind such fraudulent ventures. Individuals considering participation should be aware of the high risk of financial loss and the potential legal implications associated with promoting or engaging in an illegal scheme.