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

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

10 pointsherve7611 comments

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?

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You could sell access to the platform via a monthly subscription. This is how unusual options activity platforms do it.

Some examples:

https://unusualwhales.com/

https://www.cheddarflow.com/

https://flowalgo.com/

Thanks, I did not know those websites. I am thinking more and more about a monthly subscription to help me pay for the maintenance of the platform.

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."

Sadly numer.ai does not accept crypto trading signals only traditional financial instruments like stocks.

> 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.

> 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.

Just start charging ten bucks a month for access.

Feedback referrals:

Make people money, and provide a mechanism to kickback thanks

checkout this site for example. They provide courses as well as signals

https://traderstarter.com

You thought about adding a tip button?

Yes I have a Patreon link on the footer.

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