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Ask HN: I created a free service to help people make money. Am I crazy?

10 points by herve76 ↗ HN
I created an open crypto trading signal publishing/trading platform. (https://bitcoinvsaltcoins.com) The goal was to provide an easier way to manage crypto portfolio by allowing people to copy/trade the best crypto trading strategies. This service is completely free and the trader client is open source. (https://github.com/jsappme/node-binance-trader)

Today, the platform has more than 1000 users and I see many of them making good money using it.

Am I crazy to provide this service for free? What would you do? Where would be the best place to create a business around this idea? What about regulations?

11 comments

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sharemywin
You thought about adding a tip button?
herve76
Yes I have a Patreon link on the footer.
samstave
Feedback referrals:

Make people money, and provide a mechanism to kickback thanks

logicslave
Just start charging ten bucks a month for access.
rayhendricks
What I am getting from your website is that it is a leaderboard to trade crypto pairs?

Instead of going with a fiat paid system what if you went with a crypto of your own like Numerai (https://docs.numer.ai/tournament/learn) is doing?

From their website: "The Numerai Tournament is where you build machine learning models on abstract financial data to predict the stock market. Your models can be staked with the NMR cryptocurrency to earn rewards based on performance."

herve76
Sadly numer.ai does not accept crypto trading signals only traditional financial instruments like stocks.
kleer001
> Am I crazy to provide this service for free?

Nah, you don't really get good participation in social things starting with paid. Best to add paid functionality later.

> What would you do?

See what people are demanding then create a pro version and put that stuff there with a small charge. Continue to update and improve the pro part. Advertise. Hire people. Get big. Sell out. Go to the next thing.

> What about regulations?

That's lawyer talk, son.

herve76
> See what people are demanding then create a pro version and put that stuff there with a small charge. Continue to update and improve the pro part. Advertise. Hire people. Get big. Sell out. Go to the next thing.

I like this plan.