Copy Trading and Copy Portfolios for Cryptocurrency

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Contributor, Benzinga
August 31, 2020

Cryptocurrency is known to be one of the most volatile publicly-available asset classes. In 2020, bitcoin suffered a 50% loss in 1 single day. It then recovered those losses and soared to a 52-week high above $12,000, its first time crossing $10,000 since mid-2019.

If you don’t have an iron stomach, you may not be able to handle this kind of fluctuation in the price of your investment. But there is too much potential upside in crypto to completely forget it and there are fewer and fewer investments providing adequate returns. Cash is being debased because of the Federal Reserve’s multitrillion-dollar inflation package. Treasury bonds and savings accounts are rather useless because they cannot keep up with inflation.

Fortunately, there is a solution for those who want to get into crypto without making it a day job. The eToro Copy Trading and Copy Portfolio features allow casual investors to automate the investing strategy of a more experienced and successful investor. You don’t have to understand the technicalities behind crypto. You don’t have to know the difference between bitcoin and ether. You don’t even have to watch the portfolio itself — all you really need to do is pick the right investor.

Disclosure: eToro supports the following currencies: BTC, ADA, DASH, DOGE, EOS, ETH, LTC, NEO, XLM, XTZ, TRX, ZEC. eToro USA LLC; Investments are subject to market risk, including the possible loss of principal. T&Cs apply. *The bonus is available to Benzinga readers in the US for open states only. Served by eToro USA LLC.

Copy Trading

Basic copy trading on eToro is done through the CopyTrader feature. Copy trading is meant to be a simple process:

  1. Choose the investor you want to copy.
  2. Set the amount of money you want to allocate to the copy strategy.
  3. Hit the COPY button.

It is that simple!

You can also use the CopyTrader feature as part of a more sophisticated strategy. For instance, you can allocate a percentage of your cash on eToro to different investors. Suppose Investor 1 specializes in bitcoin and Investor 2 specializes in alt coins (any cryptocurrency that is not bitcoin). Allocating your profile in both directions gives you an experienced eye on bitcoin and other cryptos.

The eToro CopyTrader feature works regardless of how much money you have in your account. You will follow your chosen investor(s) in proportion to the amount invested. You also don’t need to worry about getting in late. Your positions are bought and sold in real-time. If your investor buys bitcoin on September 21 at 9:53 a.m. EST, you get it at the exact same time. You can also stop copying any investor at any time.

The Advantages of Copy Trading

Crypto is a young investment class, dating back to 2008 (it was really 2014 before nontechies even learned of the technology). If you’re a technical trader without an edge on crypto technology, you do not have very much data to go on. If you are a fundamentals investor, you really have nothing to go on — new innovations and regulations are creating crypto’s fundamental baseline in real-time. 

Not an investor? Don’t sit on the sidelines. But, most likely you are not a pro. Even if you have an interest in crypto or investing, you have a life outside of investing. You don’t have time to constantly watch crypto investments, which can change within the space of an hour. The investor you follow — assuming you choose a good one — will keep eyes on your investment for you. Your investor also has the opportunity to post about his decisions to buy, sell or hold. This can be a great emotional relief if you’re holding through a volatile period.

Copy Portfolio

Cryptocurrency is not the only technology that’s revolutionizing the way we invest. The average investor now has access to sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) tools that streamline research. You can also purchase expert assistance for thematic investment strategies. Here’s the problem: AI is difficult to learn and expert assistance can be quite expensive.

Enter CopyPortfolio from eToro, providing you the best of AI research and live investment expertise.

So what’s the difference between the CopyTrading and CopyPortfolio features?

CopyTrading lets you follow an individual trader. The buys and sells of that trader are your buys and sells. CopyPortfolio lets you follow multiple traders at once based on a chosen strategy or market portfolios that bundle together commodities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and contracts for differences (CFDs), all set to your investment theme.

Once you invest in the CopyPortfolio strategy you want, your portfolio is automatically rebalanced based on market conditions. You can follow the strategy of some of the world’s best investors and analysts who are partners with eToro. This can be a great introduction to its premium products, which you may incorporate if you decide to take a more active role in your investment life.

The Advantages of Copying a Portfolio

Have you ever wanted to trade alongside Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch? Our partners have designed a CopyPortfolio for you. Whether you’re looking for growth, income or asset protection, eToro has a portfolio for you. When you diversify in this way, you often get a more resilient portfolio with the agility to withstand volatility. That’s a perfect mix for investing in cryptocurrency — as an appropriate percentage of your wider portfolio, set up to protect your downside while optimizing upside potential.

Just as important, you gain access to tools and intellect that’s usually reserved for the financial elite. If you want to get into crypto but you don’t have the time to research its fast-moving news cycle, a focused CopyPortfolio theme may be just the tool you need. Watching how the experts rebalance your portfolio based on market events can also be a great learning experience.

Innovation in Crypto Investment 

CopyTrading and CopyPortfolio both incorporate the expertise of top traders with leading-edge platforms WeQuant, TipRanks and Meitav Dash — all partners of eToro.

  • WeQuant: One of the leading quantitative research companies in fintech, WeQuant creates themed portfolios for eToro geared to your specific financial goals.
  • TipRanks: Like weather forecasters, financial analysts have a history of being wrong sometimes. TipRanks separates the wheat from the chaff, using AI to hold analysts accountable for their past results. 
  • Meitav Dash: With Meitav Dash overseeing eToro portfolios, you gain the experience and the perspective of a multibillion-dollar investment house.

eToro Crypto

Here are some of the most important features of CopyTrading and CopyPortfolio:

  • The ability to start and stop copying anyone at any time
  • The benefit of AI and expert investment opinion
  • Access to the most popular cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ether
  • Automatic portfolio rebalancing based on your investment goals
  • Intuitive user interface to minimize input error
  • Trader mini blog pages to provide context for buys, sells and holds
  • Real-time reporting of your returns
  • eToro
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    Cryptocurrency is offered by eToro USA LLC (“the MSB”) (NMLS: 1769299) and is not FDIC or SIPC insured. Investing involves risk

    Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more

Copy Trading Example

Suppose you have an interest in cloud computing, but you really don’t understand the space. You know that working from home has created a new “Zoom culture” and you know that your company has recently incorporated Slack boards.

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You find the CloudComputing portfolio under the “Invest in CopyPortfolios” link on the account navigation bar.

Clicking through to the portfolio, you find that the strategy has created positive returns for investors in 6 of 8 months in 2020. You also note that the portfolio has a 5 risk score and 1,324 total investors following its strategy.

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You decide you want to invest in the portfolio, so you click the blue Invest button at the top right of your screen.

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Set your total amount and click Invest, and you now have $1,000 invested in the CloudComputing portfolio.

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It’s that easy!

Clean Up by Copying Crypto

Hands on or off, eToro has a crypto investment strategy for you. eToro is the only platform with a full-featured copy function that allows you to invest just like your financial heroes. Imagine being able to access the same expertise and investment strategies as top Wall Street hedge funds without paying huge premiums. This is exactly the access that eToro was created to provide.

Visit the eToro website and read through a few trader blogs. Look over the portfolios that you can copy. Then sign up and get involved. Rest assured that you are investing with the experts that you choose.

Disclosure: ²Sum of median estimated savings and rewards earned, per user in 2021 across multiple Coinbase programs (excluding sweepstakes). This amount includes fee waivers from Coinbase One (excluding the subscription cost), rewards from Coinbase Card, and staking rewards. ³Crypto rewards is an optional Coinbase offer. Upon purchase of USDC, you will be automatically opted in to rewards. If you’d like to opt out or learn more about rewards, you can click here. The rewards rate is subject to change and can vary by region. Customers will be able to see the latest applicable rates directly within their accounts
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