If you’re a trader, be it of stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies or one of the other many assets out there, you may have heard about trading bots. You might have researched them a little bit or even have a good understanding of what they are. But you have almost certainly been put off by the high technical barrier, which gatekeeps this innovative technology from most investors.
Did you know that around 80% of private investors actually lose money when trading manually? Big firms and funds, on the other hand, are leveraging the power of trading bots and accumulating the profits.
Co-founder and CEO at Trality
But Trality, a Vienna-based fintech, changes the rules of the game and democratizes the space by creating a range of tools that put that same power and potential in the hands of everyone. Trality attracts investors from all backgrounds by offering them access to cutting edge tools to automate their strategies or, alternatively, ‘follow’ advanced users by copy-trading their strategies to profit from their experience. The bot creation tools are rich and flexible, so instead of premade, blackbox solutions Trality users can get into the weeds and really bring their most creative ideas to life, ensuring a constantly evolving rotation of truly great bots for our Followers to choose from.
But is it really that easy? We sat down for a Q&A with Trality co-founder Moritz Putzhammer to discuss the future of automated trading.
Can you first tell us more about Trality and the people behind it?
We here at Trality see a future in which everything is automated by bots, whether it’s your coffee machine, your car, or your living room, so why should it be any different when it comes to investing? There are already throngs of big companies leveraging this technology to their advantage, so it seems to be just a matter of time before it becomes mainstream. People will be looking for a place to go and that place is going to be Trality. Chris and I [Christopher Helf, co-founder & CTO] founded the company in 2019 and what we’re doing is striving to be the go-to place for anyone who wants to experience the power and potential of automated trading—wherever they are.
There is a little bit more of a story though. Chris and I met at university, where we were both already highly involved and interested in the world of crypto trading and all the things that go with it. One thing we noticed was that algorithmic trading was only really accessible to big banks and hedge funds. In fact, we were shocked to read that over 80% of private traders are losing money trading manually against machines that are better traders in every way. That’s why we came up with the idea for Trality. Traders of all experience levels are welcome to build their bots and rent them out to eager Followers for copy trading so everyone can profit from this technology.
What is Trality’s primary focus?
The main focus is just that. Everyone should be able to automate their trading and, not only that, they should automate their trading. There is an ever-growing list of advantages that bot traders experience. It’s like digging a hole with an excavator versus using your hands.
This is the message we’re trying to send. You can and should look into using bots and we’re the place for anyone to do it. We focus on highly intricate tools that allow people to explore their creativity and put together the best algorithms possible. We have tools for coders, non-coders, with more tools coming soon. For those looking to create their own bots, our current offerings are the Code Editor and the Rule Builder. The Code Editor is the world’s first purely browser-based bot code editor for Python. It comes with a state-of-the-art Python API, sandboxed strategies and many more helpful tools to assist our users in developing the best algorithms possible.
The Rule Builder on the other hand, allows users to build their own creative strategies without the need to write a single line of code. In fact, you can just put your strategy together indicator by indicator – sort of like lego!
With “more,” you’re talking about your exciting upcoming feature, the Marketplace, right? Is this similar to copy trading?
Similar yes but not exactly the same. We see it sort of like copy trading 2.0.
When it comes to copy trading, what you will often find is that platforms are offering tried-and-tested, generic, blackbox bots that you can essentially copy. That’s fine, but it doesn’t allow much space for innovation. The Marketplace is different in that it’s designed to have a constantly evolving rotation of the highest calibre bots. Essentially, we are the only real marketplace which brings together the best bot creators with users who otherwise would have no chance to benefit from algorithmic trading ever.
How does it work? Well, the Marketplace is a product completely different to the Code Editor and Rule Builder. It is a place where those same Creators can rent out their most profitable bots to users with no experience, people who are just not interested or don’t have time to create their own solutions! These users will be called Followers. Trality Creators will get a rental fee from this usage and the best bots will be able to generate an income. For that reason, the competition between top Creators will be fierce, ensuring a consistently high-quality source of bots.
Security is a significant issue in the world of crypto. What can you tell us about Trality’s security measures?
It’s a great question – I’m happy you brought that up. Of course, as cryptocurrency investors ourselves, both my CTO Christopher and I really understand the importance of security in trading. All too frequently, dodgy businesses prey on unsuspecting, inexperienced cryptocurrency investors before scamming them—we therefore put a heavy emphasis on security. We are currently developing the world’s first end-to-end encryption for trading algorithms. Our code editor is entirely browser-based, which means that only you will ever see your trading ideas and strategies. We also have advanced firewall protection across the platform. All of Trality’s systems are safeguarded against exploits that might affect performance, security, or result in a DDOS attack. We‘ve had the opportunity to put these systems to the test and can comfortably say that they are exceeding our expectations. At Trality, we are constantly improving our security measures – our users can rest assured that they are in safe hands.
What can we look forward to from Trality in the long term?
Well, I don’t want to say too much about that right now as we are really just getting started. We have to deliver the Marketplace first and what comes after is a lot more work on achieving our vision. The launch of the Marketplace doesn’t mean that we have achieved our vision, though. When we say that we will bring the power and potential of automated trading to everyone, we mean everyone. This includes people like my dad. I think my co-founder Chris hit the nail on the head when he said, “It should be like a Spotify subscription.” That is the level of accessibility that we want to achieve and it will take time. We also want to capture other interested user groups too. Right now, we focus heavily on active traders, but there is a large segment of the market that is more passive. They are more interested in longer-term investments and it’s our explicit vision to take best care of their needs too.
On the subject of new users, we are currently only for crypto traders, but we have so many interested would-be users coming from forex or stocks. Unfortunately, we cannot cater to them yet, but we want to. So don’t be surprised if you see Trality expanding into more asset classes in the future.
Where can users learn more about Trality?
If, after reading this Q&A, we have piqued your interest in the world of automated and copy trading, then that’s great! We invite you to join our active community on Discord to talk about it with those who are actually doing it.
And you can always find us:
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