The 9 Critical Copytrading Mistakes to Avoid
Picture this: You’re scrolling through X late at night, seeing screenshots of 100x gains from traders who seem to have cracked the code. “What if I could just copy what they’re doing?” you wonder. That’s exactly what copy-trading promises: The ability to mirror successful traders’ moves automatically and share in their profits.
But here’s what those flashy success stories don’t show you: for every trader making bank through copy-trading, dozens are silently watching their portfolios drain because of simple, avoidable mistakes.
We’ve been in the Solana copy-trading trenches for quite some time now, and we’ve made (and witnessed) every mistake possible. This guide shares the hard lessons so you don’t have to learn them the expensive way.
The Foundation of Profitable Copy-trading
There are two fundamental rules when it comes to making money in general, but also applies to copy-trading: first, you need to make it, and second, perhaps more importantly, you need to avoid losing it.
When it comes to copyt-rading on Solana, it’s surprisingly easy to fall into traps set by the wallets you’re copying (and sometimes even market conditions), where they profit while you lose your funds. Let’s examine the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Mistake 1: Using Inadequate Tools
Copy-trading success depends heavily on speed: Getting in as quickly as possible after your mirror (target) wallet makes a move. For example, if your mirror wallet buys a token at $1 but your transaction is slow, you might end up buying at $1.20 or $1.30, which is a 50% price difference, significantly reducing your profit margin.
This is why using the fastest possible copy-trading bot is essential. OdinBot stands out as the fastest option available on Solana, with transactions as quick as 1 second. Don’t believe us? Come and try it yourself!
If you’re new to OdinBot, there are comprehensive tutorials available explaining setup procedures, optimal configurations, and effective strategies in our docs, which we really encourage you to have a look at: https://docs.odinbot.io/
Mistake 2: Following Unprofitable Wallets
This might seem obvious, but it’s a trap many fall into: copy-trading is about making money by mirroring others’ trades, so there’s no point copying wallets that consistently lose money.
Don’t be blinded by a wallet that had one spectacular trade while ignoring its overall performance.
For instance, the above wallet lost around $20.4k in the last month despite having some very juicy wins! Don’t let this blind you.. because if this wallet lost money, what makes you think that you will win while copy-trading it? (Unless you do a lot of manual work).
Example Wallet Address: 5bAnZNf55gyUEqY2Eg6rm1niiuiVnvd3KUoYkJwXRAGJ
Mistake 3: Following Highly Risky "Degen" Wallets
At this point, you already know that the memecoin “industry” is filled with extremely aggressive traders & wallets making numerous trades per minute/hour. Many of these wallets can drain your funds before you even notice what’s happening.
They might buy a token at $5,000 market cap and sell at $7,000. By the time your transaction processes, they’ve already exited with profits while you’re left holding the bag. This is due to the token’s low liquidity, for which btw we have an entire blog post explaining how a token’s liquidity could affect your wins: https://www.odinbot.io/how-liquidity-works-and-how-it-affects-copytrading/
The best way to identify these problematic wallets is by counting the red danger indicators next to their traded tokens. When examining their trading history, you’ll often see they predominantly trade low market cap tokens that experience rapid pump and dump cycles (if so, the token’s will have a red danger sign next to it. The more, the worse).
If you were to open the chart of any of this wallet’s traded tokens, this is what you’ll see:
Therefore, you would definitely be losing money while your mirror wallet made $1500.
Mistake 4: Copying High Frequency Trading Wallets
While not necessarily negative in all cases, wallets that make too many daily trades can be problematic, especially if you have a smaller portfolio where transaction fees can significantly eat into your profits.
Many successful traders prefer quality over quantity, focusing on a few thoroughly researched trades rather than constant buying and selling. For smaller portfolios, it’s typically better to follow wallets that make 1-2-3 trades per day (or even 1-2 trades every few days) with larger position sizes than those making numerous smaller trades.
Once again, we would love to point out that this is not a mistake as such but a recommendation.
Mistake 5: Rushing Into Copy-trading
Many beginners spot a wallet with impressive stats and immediately start copy-trading it without proper analysis or monitoring. This is a huge mistake. What if the wallet suddenly changes strategy or begins trying to profit from its copytraders?
Always monitor a wallet for at least a few days before committing to copy-trading it. This allows you to observe how consistently it performs and whether its strategy aligns with your risk tolerance and strategy.
For example, let’s have a look at the following wallet of when we first found it and how it look after few days of monitoring:
Imagine you would’ve copytraded it right away. Your portfolio would be crying right now..
If you don’t know what monitoring phase is nor how to do it, please refer to our recent blog post where we explain it thoughtfully: https://www.odinbot.io/solana-wallets-monitoring-tools/
Mistake 6: Overemphasizing Win Rate
For newcomers to copy-trading, win rate often seems like the most important metric. However, it can be misleading when viewed in isolation.
Consider this scenario: a wallet with a 50% win rate wins $10,000 on successful trades but loses only $1,000 on unsuccessful ones. Despite the merely average win rate, this wallet generates an impressive $9,000 profit.
What matters more than win rate is the profit to loss ratio: How much is made on winning trades versus how much is lost on losing ones. A wallet with fewer winning trades but larger profits on those wins can outperform a wallet with a higher win rate but smaller margins.
Take as an example the above wallet: It has a very small win rate that most people would ignore, but it made almost $8300 in only 1 week! The whole point of copy-trading is making money.. so as long as you are doing so, don’t focus so much on win rate.
Example wallet: 8JG1dT8nyQpsDCWRi2t4r3HJuYGSMhwx3QJqx5RKNN6Q
If you want to learn more about how to spot great wallets for copy-trading, please refere to our detailed blog post where we explain what exactly should you be looking for to spot a great wallet: https://www.odinbot.io/how-to-spot-a-great-wallet-for-copytrading/
Mistake 7: Copy-trading Suspicious Pattern Wallets
One of the most dangerous types of wallets to copy are those trading multiple tokens with identical tickers and profile pictures. This pattern is a major red flag when it comes to copy-trading, and you should be avoiding it 99% of the time!
When you find a wallet that has traded several tokens all with the same ticker and icon, most of the times you’re likely looking at coordinated pump and dump schemes (Also known as rug pulls).
Always check the contract addresses of tokens, not just their names or icons. If you see this pattern of multiple identical tickers in a wallet’s trading history, it’s best to stay away completely.
Before wrapping up this point, we’d like to point that sometimes, a wallet might be trying to early-catch a popular token, but since the Solana trenches are so PvP (People launching the same token over and over until one of them wins), sometimes its innevitable to trade the false copies before finding the right one.
Mistake 8: Copying Already Heavily Copied Wallets
When numerous traders copy the same wallet(s), it creates significant price spikes whenever that wallet makes a purchase (and sells). This happens because all copy-trading bots immediately trigger buys, creating an artificial demand surge.
With such wallets, you have two options:
- Skip them entirely (recommended)
- Copy them using the fastest possible bot with high priority fees to ensure your transaction processes quickly enough to get a price close to the target wallet’s entry. Nevertheless, this option requieres your portfolio to be big enough to handle it (At least 5-10 Solanas).
You can identify heavily copied wallets by examining price charts in the 1-second timeframe. If you see massive price spikes immediately after purchases (20% or more within 3 seconds), that’s a clear sign the wallet has many copytraders following it.
If you want to learn more about this, kindly refer to our “How to identify an already copytraded” blog post, where we explain this topic in complete depth: https://www.odinbot.io/how-to-identify-already-copytraded-wallets/
Mistake 9: Having the Wrong Trading Mindset
Perhaps the most crucial factor in successful copy-trading is developing the right psychological approach. Most (copy)traders are driven by emotions, which can lead to poor decision making. To become consistently profitable, you must:
- Control your emotional reactions to losses. Instead of crying, analyze why you lost. Can it be avoided the next time?
- Implement proper risk management (never risk 1 SOL to make only 0.5). Keep the Risk:Reward ratio balanced
- Invest time in learning and improving your strategy
- Create a trading plan and stick to it
- Avoid chasing losses with increasingly larger positions. This is not the casino’s roulette.
We do really recommend you master these mental aspects before committing capital to copy-trading. The psychological component often determines success or failure more than technical knowledge.
Closing Thoughts
By avoiding these nine critical mistakes, you’ll already be ahead of the majority of copytraders! Remember that successful trading requires patience, discipline, and continuous learning: There are no shortcuts. It’s all about putting in the work and time.
If you’re serious about copy-trading on Solana, take the time to develop a comprehensive strategy. Try to understand (and almost memorize) the 9 mistakes we described above and heavily work on your mindset.
The effort invested in preparation will end up paying dividends if you trully commit to it.
