Crypto traders are moving through a market that still feels jumpy. Thinner market depth had been adding to sharper price swings, and fresh macro stress has kept volatility front and center across asset markets. At the same time, tokenized real-world assets keep gaining ground with $26.6 billion in total RWA value, including more than $11 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasuries.
That’s the backdrop for this conversation with Reza G, CEO at YEX. On YEX’s public site, copy trading sits alongside spot, futures, and AI-grid tools, which says a lot about where the company sees trader demand today.
What makes copy trading interesting in this kind of market is not only the promise of convenience. It’s the social pull. Leaderboards, visible track records, and public performance turn trading into a space where people watch each other, judge each other, and often act together. Copy features can increase risk-taking, and community signals can shape who users decide to follow.
When markets turn unstable, many users don’t want to step away completely. They want exposure, but they also want a framework that feels steadier than trading alone.
1. Markets have been extremely volatile recently, with many investors moving between crypto, RWAs, and tokenized treasuries in search of stability. In this environment, are you seeing more users turning to copy trading as a way to navigate uncertainty?
“Yes,” Reza says. “Market volatility is pushing more users toward copy trading. It gives less experienced traders a structured way to stay exposed to opportunity and lean on traders with more experience. Especially, when capital is rotating quickly across different asset classes.”
This point fits the bigger picture. When traders are searching for steadier yield in tokenized Treasuries or shifting attention across on-chain assets, copy trading can look like a shortcut to confidence, even if it doesn’t remove risk.
The social layer: are users copying discipline or mood?
Here, the copy trading starts to resemble a social feed. People don’t simply evaluate performance. They also react to visibility, crowd signals, reputation, and fear. Giving traders the option to copy others led to higher risk-taking. Traders who are followed by others can become more vulnerable to the disposition effect, including a greater tendency to hold on to losing positions.
2. One criticism of copy trading is that followers may end up copying not only strategies but also emotions — especially during market panic. In your view, does copy trading amplify herd behavior, or can it actually help users make more disciplined decisions?
“One real concern with copy trading is that users may copy emotion along with strategy,” Reza notes. “That can happen when people follow blindly, especially during a panic. But copy-trading tools have improved, and users now have more ways to shape the strategy they follow, which can lower risk and support more disciplined decisions.”
Reza is explicit about that. The herd effect is real, but he sees product design as the key variable. Better controls, better visibility, and clearer risk settings can make the difference between copying with intent and copying on impulse.
When platforms start to feel like trading social networks
The social comparison angle also matters here. On these platforms, traders are not only trading. They are being watched, ranked, and judged in public.
This visibility can cut both ways. Traders who are followed by others may become more susceptible to the disposition effect, yet social interaction can also reduce that bias under certain conditions.
3. AI-driven trading tools are gaining traction partly because they remove the emotional factor from decision-making. How do you see AI intersecting with copy trading — could we eventually see users copying algorithmic strategies rather than individual traders?
“Yes, I think that’s a natural evolution. One of the biggest advantages of AI-driven strategies is that they remove a lot of emotional bias from trading.”
Reza adds, “In the future, copy trading won’t be limited to following individual traders. Users will likely be able to copy algorithmic or AI-driven strategies that execute on data, signals, and predefined risk rules.”
YEX’s product stack already hints at that direction, with copy trading set alongside AI-grid and automated trading tools on the company’s site.
What users should study before they follow anyone?
Social trading platforms naturally reward visibility. The trader with the loudest numbers often gets the first look.
Reza pushes the conversation away from surface-level rankings. He keeps bringing it back to steadiness, downside control, and how a trader behaves when conditions deteriorate.
4. On YEX, traders can be selected based on performance metrics such as rankings and ROI. What indicators should users pay the most attention to when deciding whom to follow?
“Users should really focus on consistency of performance, maximum drawdown, and risk management,” Reza explains. “Those metrics show whether returns are stable over time, how deep losses have been during downturns, how the trader sizes positions.”
He is careful not to confuse visibility with durability. “The best traders to follow are not always the ones with the highest ROI, but usually the ones who can show steady performance with controlled risk over a longer period.”
Community cues can influence decisions, but they do not always point users toward the soundest risk profile.
The mechanics matter too. Copy trading is not one simple setting.
5. The platform allows users to copy trades either by fixed amount or by proportional allocation. In practice, how do these two modes differ, and which approach tends to work better for most users?
“This comes down to a user’s risk-management plan. To choose between fixed and proportional models, users need to look at their capital, the strategy of the trader they want to follow, and the amount of risk they’re comfortable taking,” Reza adds.
There isn’t a universal choice here. Fixed amounts can feel easier to control. Proportional allocation can track a lead trader more closely. The better fit depends on the user’s balance, the leader’s style, and how tightly the follower wants positions to mirror the original trade.
6. Copy trading platforms sometimes start to resemble social networks, where top traders gain followers much like creators online. Have you observed any behavioral shifts among traders who know that hundreds or thousands of users are copying their strategies?
“Yes, that dynamic definitely exists,” Reza points out. “When traders know that many users are copying them, their role changes. They’re no longer trading only for themselves. They’re managing responsibility for a community of followers.”
He goes further. “In many cases, that leads to more disciplined behavior. Traders pay closer attention to risk management, consistency, and protecting their track record, instead of chasing short-term risk. It also strengthens the social side of copy trading. There, transparency, reputation, and long-term performance matter as much as raw returns.”
That gives the category its tension. Public attention can distort behavior. It can also sharpen accountability. The next step may be a broader definition of who, or what, gets copied. If users already trust a system to mirror trades, it is not a big leap to imagine them following models instead of people.
7. Can you share any numbers that illustrate the scale of copy trading on YEX — for example, user adoption, the number of active traders being copied, or the share of trading activity connected to the feature?
“Although we’re still early in our growth phase, we’re already seeing strong engagement with copy trading on YEX,” Reza shares. “The platform currently has over 250,000 active users globally, and copy trading has become one of the most frequently explored features, especially among newer users.”
Reza also points to how activity clusters around a few visible leaders. “The feature is built around a leaderboard of traders ranked by metrics like ROI, consistency, and risk, and a growing group of traders are actively being followed and copied. What we’re seeing is that a small number of high-performing traders attract the majority of followers, which is common across copy-trading ecosystems.”
That concentration makes sense. In social trading, attention rarely spreads evenly. A few visible names tend to pull most of the following, especially when ranking signals are easy to spot.
Execution quality becomes the real test when markets speed up. Copy trading sounds simple on paper. Yet, it gets much harder when markets lurch, and price gaps widen.
YEX’s docs highlight timing requirements, rate limits, market depth access, and websocket connectivity, all of which point to the importance of speed and synchronization in active trading environments.
8. Once a user starts copying a trader, the system automatically synchronizes position opening and closing. How does YEX ensure that execution remains accurate and fair for followers, especially during periods of high market volatility?
“On YEX, we focus on low-latency order execution and proportional position sizing,” Reza explains. “That keeps follower trades synchronized with the lead trader’s positions as closely as possible. Orders are replicated based on each user’s allocated capital, which helps keep exposure aligned with the original strategy.”
Reza is direct about the stress points too. “We also implement risk controls and liquidity monitoring, especially during periods of high volatility, to reduce slippage and support fair execution. The goal is to reflect the copied strategy as accurately as possible for everyone involved.”
The point here is that copy trading only works if the copied trade remains recognizable once the market starts moving fast.
Easy onboarding matters, but it is not enough without guardrails.
The social side of copy trading makes it feel accessible. That’s part of the appeal. It also raises the bar for clear safeguards.
9. Finally, how easy is it for a new user to start using copy trading on YEX, and what safeguards are in place to ensure that followers are not blindly copying high-risk strategies during turbulent market periods?
“Getting started with copy trading on YEX is straightforward,” Reza says. “New users can browse the leaderboard, review performance metrics like ROI, consistency, and drawdowns. As well as select a trader to follow in just a few clicks. Once they allocate capital, positions are automatically synchronized with the trader they’re copying.”
The next point is the safeguards built around that simplicity.
“To help prevent users from blindly taking on high-risk strategies, the platform displays risk metrics for each trader, including historical drawdowns, position sizes, and volatility. Users can set capital-allocation limits, and they can diversify by copying multiple traders with different strategies.”
What Reza keeps returning to is control. Copy trading can open the market to newer participants, but its value depends on whether users are following a process or just following a crowd.
That is what makes the category so relevant right now. In a market defined by volatility, copy trading can look like guidance, social proof, discipline, or momentum chasing. Sometimes it can be all four at once. The structure of the platform shapes the behavior it produces.
For YEX, Reza’s case is that the product should help users move closer to judgment and away from reflex. In a tense market, that may be the line that matters most.
