I agree that it's totally possible Tim doesn't have whatever education credentials he's said he had. Although it may be a lie that's not really important to me in my learning; thought shady many people have lied about credentials but still have been effective at whatever they do.
What's important to me is what experience he has trading and where is his money coming from (only subscriptions?). We already know he's had several senior level trading positions at known banks. You can also see he traded on the floor for a short period of time.
Article from 2001:
"I left the bank in 1991 to form a CTA. I managed offshore money for a large commodity pool until 1994. In
1995, I took a break for a few months, then leased a seat on the CME. I had always wanted to try trading on the floor, and now with the pits disappearing, I'm glad I took the time to try it."
http://web.archive.org/web/20011220230708/http://blackthornecapital.com:80/tdinterview.html
In the attached picture, you can see his badge THRN. So it's clear he had a seat under his own company name 'Blackthorne Capital, Inc.' as he said a 2001 article. Depending upon the time of the year, his seat ranged from $822,000-$575,000.
http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/historical-pricing/cme-historical-membership-pricing.html
I would assume he'd join at the beginning of the year but lets say $700,000 to be safe. Inflation adjusted to 2018 US dollars, he paid about $1,200,000 for a seat.
It's seems pretty questionable to me that he would spend $1.2M (2018 dollars) off customer subscriptions to buy a seat on the floor. It would seem like money would have had to be coming in from another source other than just customers. It would take many hundreds of students to fund his seat on the floor and not even pay for his lifestyle. So money had to be coming in from another source. Maybe being a successful trader? I don't know.
I'm still open to believe both sides. The lack of supposed education credentials in non-trading fields doesn't prove he cannot trade, it just opens doubt but I have not directly seen anything that proves he's a trading fraud. We have seen he has more than a 45 year career in the trading industry. I would think he'd learn something over that period of time. It also seems like he has to have another source of income beyond students. He doesn't even advertise and doesn't have that many students.
There's gotta be stronger evidence than only his lack of PHD credentials and the other evidence provided on this board. Who knows he might be a pathological liar that's a successful trader with delusions of grandeur. The sheer size of his trading seems unbelievable but I know traders making $100,000 a day like it's nothing and on a good day a couple million. Unfortunately, not everything is on the internet