Youngevity officially discontinued its "8 Minute Trader" forex program on December 6, 2023, just over a year after its initial rollout. The program, fronted by Sal Leto, a figure previously associated with the OneCoin cryptocurrency scheme, promised participants rapid daily returns through a proprietary trading system. Leto pitched the system as capable of generating 5%, 10%, or even 20% gains in as little as five to ten minutes of daily trading.
This initiative followed Youngevity's earlier venture, "Max Trader's Academy," which launched in January 2022. That product included "Max Indicator" software, described as an "Artificial Intelligent oriented" application designed to scan financial markets for price fluctuations. Reviews for Max Indicator on Youngevity's website abruptly ceased after February 2022, suggesting a quiet discontinuation before 8 Minute Trader emerged.
Leto introduced 8 Minute Trader during a marketing webinar on June 29, 2022. He claimed to have given Youngevity an exclusive licensing agreement for his trading strategies. The core idea focused on brief daily trading sessions, often during the opening hour of the US30, also known as the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Leto described the US30 as "the most volatile instrument in the world," a market he claimed to conquer by "do[ing] the opposite of everyone else."
Users downloaded software compatible with the MT4 platform, which displayed real-time buy and sell ranges. These ranges, supposedly AI-generated, appeared as green zones for buying and red zones for selling. If the live chart entered the green area, a user clicked "buy." If the chart continued to trend upwards, they profited. The sell area operated in reverse: a user clicked "sell" if the chart fell into the red zone, profiting if the decline continued. Position holding duration remained at the user's discretion.
Leto asserted that his strategy had produced significant results over six months. As of June 29, 2022, he reported only eight losing days across 163 business days of active trading. This timeline aligned with the period when Max Indicator reviews had gone silent, leading some to speculate if 8 Minute Trader was a rebranded or refined version of the earlier product. Neither Youngevity nor Leto released detailed trading results to support these claims for prospective customers.
The manual nature of the trades meant 8 Minute Trader and Youngevity largely avoided direct securities fraud issues. However, the regulatory landscape for such offerings is complex. Operators who provide personalized advice on futures contracts, options, or retail off-exchange forex contracts typically must register as Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The program's standardized buy/sell ranges, identical for all members, likely meant it did not qualify as "personalized advice."
But the income claims presented a different regulatory challenge under the FTC Act. Leto's promises of 5% to 20% daily gains in minutes could be deemed misleading if they did not reflect the average customer's experience. If a majority of subscribers failed to achieve such returns, Youngevity could face enforcement action from the Federal Trade Commission. These high-yield claims were central to the program's marketing.
Beyond the software, 8 Minute Trader also included a component allowing customers to watch and manually copy the moves of a live trader. Leto explained this feature was added after observing that many users who made money in the morning often lost it by continuing to trade throughout the day. This live trading component did not alter the basic manual execution requirement for participants.
The financial barrier to entry for 8 Minute Trader included an initial fee, which Leto predicted would be $599, followed by a $199 monthly subscription. This pricing structure aligned with Youngevity's existing product model. Max Indicator, for comparison, had cost between $210.99 and $499.95 upfront. Leto also hinted that 8 Minute Trader would feature its own compensation plan, integrating it into Youngevity's multi-level marketing framework.
The program's scheduled launch date was July 4, 2022. However, no official announcement or product listing appeared on Youngevity's website or its Facebook feed around that time. The company quietly abandoned the program by October 27, 2023, before confirming its official closure on December 6, 2023. The cessation of 8 Minute Trader concluded another of Youngevity's short-lived forays into the volatile world of high-speed financial trading.