BTC76,090−5.49%
ETH2,235−7.67%
SOL90.06−7.12%How to check a crypto trader before you follow them
Anyone can post a winning trade. A screenshot of a green position, a "target hit" post and a pinned list of wins are easy to make, and the losing calls tend to disappear quietly. Before you follow a trader on X or Telegram, or pay for their group, check their record the way an auditor would. These seven checks are the ones we use for every trader on x-trades.live, with numbers from the 1,961 calls we followed in the last 3 months.
1. Look for every call, not the best ones
A record only means something if it includes the losses. Ask where the full list of calls is. If you can only find the winners, you are looking at marketing, not a record. On x-trades.live every call we read from a trader stays on their page, losing trades and deleted posts included.
2. Check that the call was clear before the move
A real call says what the trader is doing before the price moves: the coin, long or short, the entry, the stop and a target. "I was long from the bottom", posted after a rally, can't be checked. Neither can a chart with a few lines and no position. We count a trade from the moment its post appeared, at the trader's own entry if it is within 1% of the price at that moment.
3. Look for a stop loss on every trade
The stop is the price where the trader admits being wrong. With a stop, every loss has a size you know in advance. Without one, a losing trade can stay "still open" for weeks. In our data, 79% of calls came with a stop, and 18% had neither a stop nor a stated leverage. We rank only trades with a stop or a stated leverage. More in What a stop loss tells you about a trader.
4. Judge the average result, not only the win rate
A high win rate can hide big losses. Of the 13 ranked traders with a win rate of 60% or more, 4 still lost money on average over 3 months. And 7 traders won fewer than half of their trades but made money, because their wins were bigger than their losses. Across all 1,473 finished trades with a stop, the win rate was 51% and the average result −0.01% per trade before fees: close to a coin toss.
5. Count the trades
Five winners in a row can be luck. A record of 30 or 50 trades tells you much more than 5. We rank a trader only after 5 counted trades in 3 months, and the leaderboard pulls short records toward everyone's average, so a lucky start doesn't put anyone on top.
6. Do the maths for fees and leverage
Most results you see, ours included, are price moves before fees and without leverage. The average losing trade in our data lost 1.21% of the price. At 10x leverage, that is about 12% of the money in the trade, before fees. A trader can be right about the direction and still lose money for followers who use high leverage.
7. Remember that a record is not a promise
Past results describe what a trader's calls did, not what they will do next. In our own data, the traders who led one 45-day period did no better than the rest in the next one. Use a record to rule traders out, not to expect the next trade to win.
Where to start: the leaderboard ranks every trader we follow on X and Telegram by the average result of their calls, and each trader page lists every call with its outcome. The method page explains exactly how we count. Nothing here is investment advice.