UPDATE:
For technical reasons, trading on the Coinmatics platform is currently suspended until further notice.
Trading operations will however be carried out normally on the Zignaly platform for all the available providers (both profit-sharing and subscription-based).
Crypto Copy Trading Platforms Comparison: Zignaly VS Coinmatics
Intro
In my research of the best performing platforms to base my crypto copy trading activities, I have pretty much checked all of the currently existing options, from the more “traditional” ones, to even some of the decentralized solutions.
In this brief article, I will exclusively focus on the pure copy trading aspects.
Each one of these platforms has different characteristics and sometimes different philosophies in how they approach the copy trading business, some of them allow only bots, some others have different approaches towards how the trader should be rewarded, but most of these platforms are clearly made by someone that doesn’t have extensive experience with trading and were therefore leaving many important aspects out.
Because of all these reasons, I have ended up selecting two platforms for my own operations, as they were the two that did by far tick more boxes in terms of capabilities from a trader standpoint and these are Zignaly and (more recently) Coinmatics.
Even if both the platforms offer a lot of features and resources, that space from trading signals to instruments that can be useful for market analysis, in this brief article I will exclusively focus on the pure copy trading aspects, touching on the main differences between the two from both a trader’s and a copy trader's perspective.
Zignaly
Trader’s Perspective
This is the first platform that I have started using in July 2020 for my copy trading services, and I have to say it has been quite reliable, plus it is very easy to get in touch with the technical team in case of necessity, which is a great added value for traders.
It is possible to connect to the platform in a variety of ways, and it is possible to trade on Zignaly both manually and automatically, for example sending signals to the platform from TradigView.
The currently supported exchanges are Binance and KuCoin, while both spot and futures are available with the option to chose between USDT or BTC base currency.
Originally a subscription model was the only option, but just a few days ago Zignaly has launched its profit-sharing model for futures providers (currently not for spot markets).
The platform offers a variety of orders that will pretty much satisfy any trading style, and allow traders to enhance their trading compared to what they would be able to do from the trading interface of one of the supported exchanges (Binance or KuCoin).
Copier’s Prospective
From a copier standpoint, Zignaly can initially be a bit daunting, as it offers a lot of different tools and options (just to mention some, there are signal traders, copy traders, plus there are different ways of setting up the platform in order to use it as an automatic trading bot), but once everything has been set up, and the first connections with the exchange and the trader have been done, it is very simple to use, as everything is automatic.
These steps have been made even easier in the past months since Zignaly accounts are now available that will still use a Binance account for the assets deposit, but are much easier to connect as they don’t even require API keys anymore (the user can simply make a deposit, and choose a trader to copy).
Copiers can pick from a variety of different strategies and, as mentioned above, can choose between Binance and KuCoin, spot and futures with USDT or BTC base currency, and more recently also between monthly subscription, or profit-sharing based services.
Also, several stats are available for the copiers to make an informed decision with regard to which trader to copy. In fact, every provider has on their front page a chart of all the past results on different time frames (Total, 180 days, 90 days, 30 days, and even 7 days), and a recap of the return from closed positions (on the top left corner) and the opened positions too (on the top right corner).
Moreover, by clicking inside each provider it is possible to access more detailed statistics relative to the performances per each quarter, but also how the number of copiers has progressed, the number of profitable weeks, percentage of winning trades, and much more.
Coinmatics
Trader’s Perspective
The Coinmatics copy trading platform is comparatively newer than the Zignaly one, but it looks promising and I have recently started using it as it offers some tools than in my case integrate very well with what I am currently using on Zignaly.
Coinmatics works in a slightly different way compared to Zignaly, and in a way, it is more simple and more intuitive. In fact, Coinmatics doesn’t currently offer trading bots as Zignaly does, but will soon offer a Trading View integration. As for now, it allows the trader to make a set-and-forget connection (via APIs) to their own Binance account (currently the only exchange supported but more are coming), and from that moment on, any operation on their own Binance account will also be reproduced on Coinmatics and will therefore be possible to offer it to copiers.
This platform offers two main instruments for traders, one is a Telegram feed that can be charged or free of charge and that can eventually be used for what they call “manual copy trading”, pretty much equivalent to a signal service, or alternatively an automatic copy trading is also offered. This second option will require the copier to connect their own exchange via APIs too and is currently available for Binance spot markets, but the platform plans to offer the service for Futures and margin trading, also on other exchanges soon.
The automatic copy trading on Coinmatics is only offered as a profit-sharing model (no subscription fees required), where the strategy itself is free to follow for the copier, but the trader can charge a success fee, basically a percentage of the profit as a form of compensation for his services.
Copier’s Perspective
As a copier, especially if someone new to crypto, the Coinmatics platform can somehow look less intimidating compared to the Zignaly one (also because of the lower number of functionalities), and quite straightforward to use.
Clicking on the “Copy Trading” section the copier is introduced to a list of different traders that he can decide to copy manually (Telegram) or automatically. Moreover, he can check per each trader some useful statistics, such as the number of stars, that ranges from 1 to 10 and should give you an idea of the type of results that you can get from a provider, even though it is kind of subjective and also requires a large samples size before giving reliable results, therefore tends to penalize traders that are new to the platform.
Another useful statics that can be checked is is the trader’s Risk Level, which ranges between “Low” and “Very High” and is determined by the amount of risk that the traders take compared with their returns.
Finally, the copier can also check the Trader’s “Signal History”, “Trading Pairs” traded, and “Asset Allocation” in order to have a complete picture of what they can expect from that provider.
Another interesting difference is in that Coinmatics keeps track through its chart of the open equity as well (meaning also when a position is still open), while Zignaly only charts the realized PnL, or the results of the trades once they are actually closed and the result is finalized.
Final Considerations
Many copy trading platforms have been popping up in the last year or so, but few of them are made by traders and with a trader’s perspective in mind. As a result, few of these platforms are actually good for the copiers as well, as this can only happen when the platform offers to the traders all the tools that they might need in order to run their strategy and manage their risk in the best possible way. After my researches, I have come to the conclusion that (IMO) both Zignaly and Coinmatics offer tools that allow the traders to achieve these goals, and are therefore the platform where I am currently basing my own copy trading operations.
On top of that, at their respective current stage of development (even though I am sure that both the platform have just got started and will keep developing), I think that Zignaly and Coinmatics integrate quite well with each other, for example, even though I am going to move most of my own provider to a profit-sharing model, Zignaly currently offers it only for Futures markets, so I will be able to fill this gap by offering the profit-sharing copy trading for Spot markets on Coinmatics instead.
Crypto copy trading is just getting started, and I am excited to see what these two promising platforms will bring in the future.
I hope that you have enjoyed the article and found it useful.
If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me on Twitter, or on the Telegram Group where I will also share a FREE feed of my Binance Altcoins Spot Markets trades, plus all the news related to the services and trading related thoughts.
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