In an attempt to be helpful, many traders point newbies towards forums, such as r/cryptocurrency on Reddit, hoping that they will find answers there. But this can actually make the process even more complicated - there is so much conflicting advice that it can feel impossible to know which advice to trust, and which to ignore. More than anything, it is impossible to know which users are telling the truth, and which users are making up fake wins in order to try and build a following. 

NAGA founder Benjamin Bilski talks about exactly this in his recent interview with Hackernoon, Any Financial Advice You Can Get Online Should be Taken with Caution.

What are the key pitfalls for beginners trying to get involved in crypto?

The key pitfalls for beginner crypto investors are very similar to the pitfalls involved in investing in virtually anything. And one of the main problems with investing is that we often let our emotions control us. There’s even a term for it: emotional investing. 

“One challenge for beginners that applies to any asset class might be not understanding how to control emotions, namely fear and greed, and when it might be wise to take profit/cut losses,” says Bilski. 

For new investors, this can be easier said than done - especially for those who only have a limited amount of money to invest in, and who first got into crypto because they’d read about the huge gains made by other investors. Realising that investing can be difficult and often involves lots of trial and error can be a difficult pill to swallow.

Another big pitfall - as we touched on earlier - is that new investors will often believe anything they hear because they want it to work. The problem with this is that anyone can use platforms like TikTok and YouTube and say they made millions by investing in a certain coin - but there’s no proof, and there’s no accountability. It can be difficult to tell whether influencers are being incentivised by companies to push a particular coin, and by the time large influencers are exposed, it is often already too late. In fact, this has become such a problem that TikTok has cracked down on crypto, share trading, and finance influencer promotions after it was revealed that scammers were using influencers to dupe investors. 

What if you could get investment advice from experts with a proven track record, and even copy their trades?

Crypto moves extremely fast, and there’s a steep learning curve. Ultimately, this means that unfortunately, it is not a very beginner-friendly industry. This is exactly the problem that Bilski is trying to solve - and the reason he built NAGA, the social trading platform that has racked up a global community of over a million users. 

NAGA is a super app for investing, crypto, and payments. It was founded back in 2015 and has since developed a lot of unique technology that is designed to bring more people into crypto trading while rewarding professional traders. 

The key feature of NAGA that has made it so popular is its auto-copy feature - a tool that allows new traders to essentially spy on other professional traders, and to copy from experts. The app is powered by the NAGA Coin, which allows skilled traders to monetise their trading strategies and get payments deposited instantly into their wallets as more copiers follow them. 

NAGA’s protocol can be compared to the industry trading version of Facebook. This means that users can essentially leverage the platform for all of their trading needs, instead of having to continuously hop between different platforms. Creating a single account allows traders to get involved with the vast, growing community, hold stocks, participate in events and educational seminars, win prizes, and pay for anything using their NAGA card. 

By far, the main benefit for new crypto traders is that the NAGA platform is completely transparent. Instead of guessing who to follow based on who is the loudest on forums, or who has paid the most to advertise themselves, users have access to a fully transparent leaderboard that shows the platform’s top traders, along with the amount of profit they have made, the number of auto-copiers they have, and their win ratio. 

How do experienced traders benefit from this?

The benefit for new traders is clear - they get to copy the trades of experienced traders and then carry on their lives as usual. But at this point, you might be wondering: ‘what’s in it for investors? Why should they share their trading strategies with me?’ 

Experienced traders, on the other hand, get to benefit from the NAGA Popular Investor Programme. In exchange for sharing their trading strategies with other users on the platform, traders can get paid up to $100,000 per month from the Popular Investors’ fund. 

In addition, copiers will pay €1 for each copied trade. Approximately 35% of this will be shared with the trader that they are copying from. This will incentivise traders who usually monetise their audience through email lists, Facebook, or YouTube to bring their audience over to NAGA and get paid directly instead.

Social trading platforms like NAGA are helping to reduce the risks associated with investing

Unlike an anonymous platform such as Reddit, an investing super app where everything is combined into a single platform increases accountability between users. Given that the entire premise of NAGA is based around transparency, we can be hopeful that it is a step in the right direction when it comes to reducing the number of crypto scams, which increased significantly throughout 2021. 

“I think increasing the general understanding of cryptocurrencies among the public could be the way to minimise risks - in other words, not let risky scams get attention and let good projects prosper and bring value to people around the world,” Bilski told Hackernoon.