Hey everyone,

A couple of months back I had some spare money and wanted to try something new with it. Context: I have a decent job, I did not need this money to live on, and I like crypto - which some would say is a dangerous combination.

I remembered Binance has a copy trading feature where you follow somebody and split the profits, so I bought some USDT, moved it over and started.

Starting plan

I have traded before, nothing dramatic, and I have been around crypto since 2019. But I had never copy traded anywhere, let alone there, so I did not really have a strategy.

I decided against putting everything behind one person, and instead to trial each trader with a small amount before committing more. Especially since this was futures, not spot.

Every trader started with 50 USDT, to be topped up monthly depending on how they did.

Not knowing what mattered, I picked them mostly on PnL and ROI. That was the whole filter.

First correction

Picking on PnL and ROI was, predictably, a mistake. Several of them were extremely aggressive and leveraged - one was running 125x - so they printed huge numbers when they were right and gave back essentially everything when they were not.

After a month I rewrote the criteria. A trader now had to have:

• A decent history on the platform, ideally 100+ days
• Few previously closed accounts, ideally under three
• Returns over the last 90 days that were solid rather than insane (roughly the 10% to -50% band)
• An equity curve that trends up instead of zig-zagging
• Max drawdown around 20% or less
• A reasonable Sharpe ratio

So: pickier, and no longer expecting fireworks. I expect to keep adjusting this as more data comes in.

Results

I copied 20 traders in total, and tracked each of them separately in a spreadsheet. Note that for traders still open the PnL includes unrealised positions, and none of it is net of the profit share, which is usually 10%.

Most of the first-month traders are closed now. Either I did not like how they were handling risk and stopped, or they lost the lot on their own.

The second batch, chosen with the new criteria, is doing better so far - but they have had less than a month, so I am not claiming anything yet. As above, nobody gets more money from me until they have given me a full month.

Bottom line

After all of that, I am up 129 USDT, close to 8% over two months. Most of it came from one trader who did very well and to whom I had added capital.

Where I go from here

The change in criteria was clearly the right call and should keep the worst risks out, so I will keep refining it as I collect more.

I also tested far more traders than I needed to because I wanted options. Going forward I will start fewer new ones and put more behind the handful already working.

The goal is steadier returns from a few traders with different approaches - all within the same risk band - and then to increase size slowly so the dollar numbers mean something.

Thanks

Mostly I wrote this up to put the numbers somewhere and to hear from people with more experience. I know copy trading is a divisive topic here, but there is no harm in comparing notes.