Alan Friedland has been identified as the owner and architect behind the NRGY smart-contract Ponzi scheme. This revelation came as business partner Duane Noble aggressively defended the scheme, despite Friedland's active legal troubles. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is currently suing Friedland for allegedly stealing $1.6 million from investors in a prior operation.
Chris Hawk Jones, another NRGY promoter, publicly linked Friedland to the project during a promotional video. Jones stated he and Noble had worked on "Brank," a trading platform concept using simulated funds, where he met Friedland. Friedland was hailed as NRGY's "rocket scientist" and "brainchild," with Noble as a close collaborator. The Brank project itself appears to have been abandoned.
Friedland, based in Florida, launched NRGY without registering his company or the offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This lack of registration bypasses critical investor protections, allowing the scheme to operate without oversight of its financial claims or structure. Smart-contract Ponzis, like NRGY, often promise high, unsustainable returns to early investors, paid out by funds from later participants, until the flow of new money collapses.
Friedland's regulatory issues began in April 2020 when the CFTC sued him over Fintech Investment Group and Compcoin. The agency alleged he promoted Compcoin by falsely promising access to "ART," an advanced trading bot. ART supposedly generated high returns from USD/EUR forex trades. But investigators found the bot was entirely fictitious.
Investors who purchased Compcoin, expecting automated profits from ART, instead received a token that quickly became worthless. All major digital asset exchanges eventually delisted Compcoin. The CFTC's complaint specified that Friedland's scheme defrauded investors of roughly $1.6 million through these misrepresentations.
The current NRGY operation bears a strong resemblance to the Compcoin fraud. Duane Noble promoted a planned NRGY app named "TradeGenie," described as an algorithm that would link to users' TD Ameritrade accounts for automatic stock trading. This concept closely mirrors the non-existent ART bot, suggesting a pattern of promoting automated trading tools linked to digital assets that fail to deliver.
The CFTC's case against Alan Friedland is active in Florida federal court. The allegations include fraud, misrepresentation, and operating an unregistered commodity pool. The trial is tentatively scheduled for November 1, 2021. Victims of similar unregistered schemes are encouraged to consult the CFTC's website for information on potential recovery actions.