To sign up for our daily email newsletter, CLICK HERE
By Catherine Barkley
Modern trading dates back to the 1600s when the Dutch East India Company became the first company in history to issue stocks and bonds to the general public. A lot has changed since then, but the desire to invest and reap the rewards remains strong.
Fast forward to 2009, when Bitcoin was born and crypto trading began. The radical volatility of crypto has devastated some and made others wildly rich, but the truth is about an estimated 95% of Bitcoin day traders are losing money.
Social trading is a partial solution to curtailing losses by letting crypto traders of all experience levels benefit from the successes of others by knowing who is making what trades and following the lead of only the most successful traders.
A GROWING TREND
Social trading began in 2010 with eToro, one of the first social trading platforms. Since then, other companies have taken different approaches and enhanced the experience.
For instance, League of Traders improved on social trading by providing public-facing profiles as a key platform feature with leaderboards, which is common in gaming. This builds a trading community where social trading is encouraged, and even celebrated with real-time notifications and easily accessible portfolio information.
With social trading at the heart of crypto trading apps, such as League of Traders, users are able to analyze top-traders portfolios, seeing their growth, current picks, trade history and risk assessment. Traders who join the platform can easily know who is garnering the best results and the path they took to realize their gains.
“There is so much uncertainty in crypto trading and our community is a trusted network of traders who rely on each other resulting in a shared success,” said John-Ting, CEO and co-founder of League of Traders. “More experienced traders benefit by using the platform to test the limits of their own expertise and match strategies with other elite traders/players.”
Social trading is delivering results at League of Traders with the top five traders averaging over 1,000% return.
Unlike the classical fundamental and technical analysis methods of trading that attempt to measure perceived profit through market trends, social trading analysis relies on the success of other traders in the market, regardless of market trends.
By “looking over the shoulder” of successful traders, novices can benefit from the strategies and insights of the more skilled traders. There are also features, such as copy trading, that enable crypto enthusiasts to automatically copy the trading behavior of their favorite traders. This eliminates any delays in mimicking the trades of others.
CHANGING THE MARKET APPROACH TO TRADING
The acceptance of social trading in crypto has been swift with many traders relying on the technique to build their reputations and communities. It has also given rise to many online forums and groups of traders who share techniques.
Notably, Reddit is home to multiple groups, such as WallStreetBets, which famously fanned the fury around GameSpot some time ago.
HOW FAR CAN SOCIAL TRADING GO?
The finickiness of most trends have led many to wonder how long will social trading last?
It’s unlikely that social trading will overtake traditional trading, however, it’s probable that trading will never be completely siloed as before. Whether it’s social trading, copy trading or algo-trading (copying a successful algorithm that automatically makes based on criteria) it’s certain there are benefits to analyzing the actions of the most successful.
Ultimately, social trading eliminates much of the uncertainty associated with crypto trading by knowing what those in the community are using to form judgements and take action. Together everyone can be more prosperous.
