The Central Bank of Russia issued a warning on September 17, 2024, flagging RT USDT as a pyramid scheme. The RT USDT website, rt-usdt.vip, registered on September 9, 2024, provides no verifiable ownership or executive details. Its domain registration through Alibaba in Singapore used bogus information.

RT USDT offers no retailable products or services. Participants are solely marketing RT USDT affiliate membership. The compensation plan centers on investing tether (USDT) for promised passive returns. Affiliates are tiered into VIP levels, with higher investments supposedly yielding daily returns. VIP1 investors, for example, put in 12 to 51 USDT and are promised 3 to 13 USDT daily. These VIP levels escalate to VIP10, requiring investments of 30,000 to 99,999 USDT for potential daily returns of 10,332 to 34,549 USDT.

Referral commissions are paid down three levels of recruitment. Personally recruited affiliates earn 12%, with downline recruits on level two earning 2% and level three earning 1%. Affiliate membership is free, but full participation in the income opportunity requires a minimum 12 USDT investment.

RT USDT is a "click a button" app Ponzi scheme that misappropriates the names Renaissance Capital and Renaissance Technologies. The scheme's purported revenue source is "quantitative trading." Participants log in and click a button, with the frequency of clicks tied to investment level. This action is claimed to generate revenue through quantitative trading, a portion of which is shared with investors. This premise is false; clicking a button within the app generates no revenue.

The operation functions by recycling newly invested funds to pay earlier investors. Similar "click a button" app Ponzis using stolen identities include Nykaa Mall, Fresnillo PLC USDT, and Lime Mall. Schemes claiming quantitative trading as their revenue source include Putrex, TOST, and World Quant AI. Hundreds of such schemes have been documented since 2021, typically lasting a few weeks to a few months before collapsing.

These schemes disappear by disabling their websites and apps without notice, leaving most investors with losses due to inevitable Ponzi math. Organized crime interests from China are believed to operate these scam factories from Southeast Asian countries. In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned Cambodian politician Ly Yong Phat, citing ties to Chinese human trafficking scam factories. Phat allegedly shelters Chinese scammers operating out of Cambodia through companies he owns. The same group of Chinese scammers is thought to be behind the widespread "click a button" app Ponzi plague, regardless of their operating country.

On October 17, 2024, RT USDT collapsed. Its website is no longer accessible.