How to choose a copy trader on Bybit: a ten-question checklist

This is the shortest useful version of everything else on this site. Ten questions, in the order that saves you the most money.

1. Does the rating survive contact with the liquidation column?

Open the leaderboard, filter the liquidation column to 0. Everything below assumes this passes. A trader with one liquidation day is a judgement call; two or more is a rejection.

2. Is the account actually trading?

Look at Trading Days and the share of flat days. An account with +200% and 40 trading days out of 180 is three positions, not a strategy - and you cannot judge a strategy from three positions.

3. What is the return per month after the fee?

The first tile of the review. If the trader's own monthly return is 1.5% and the fee is 1.2%, you are copying to earn 0.3% while taking every risk. At that point staking is the better trade.

4. Is the drawdown survivable for you personally?

Not "survivable on average" - for your size. If the trader's worst 180-day drawdown is 35%, then 35% of your deposit is the number you have to be willing to watch disappear. If that number makes you change your mind during the drawdown, size down until it doesn't.

5. Are followers currently being paid?

Followers' PnL over 90 days. Positive and consistent: the model works right now. Negative while the trader's own ROI is fine: the fee, the friction, or the timing is eating you.

6. Is the profit concentrated in one symbol?

The review says so explicitly when a single pair carries more than half the profit. A trader whose year depends on one token is a bet on that token, not on a strategy.

7. Can you verify the trades?

If trades are hidden appears in the transparency block, you are trusting aggregates only. That is a legitimate choice - many profitable accounts hide their trades - but it lowers our trust in the rating for that account and should lower yours.

8. How long does the average position live?

Decide whether you can live with the idle time. A five-day average means your capital is out of the market most of the cycle. This is not a quality question; it is a fit question.

9. What does the rating breakdown say is being paid for?

The breakdown shows every penalty and bonus with its scale. Look for the two patterns that matter: a large current-drawdown penalty (the account is under water right now) and a trading-win-rate penalty (a grid signature).

10. What happens if you are wrong?

Set the size and the stop before you subscribe, not after the first red day:

• allocate a share of the deposit you could lose entirely without changing your life (5–15% per trader is a common range),
• use PCSL (copy stop-loss) so the exit is mechanical,
• plan to withdraw profits regularly rather than leaving them on the same account,
• remember the platform's auto-unsubscribe rules: 20 failed copies in a row or 100 in 24 hours.

The bonus question: should you copy several?

Yes. Our advice, and the reason: a single account is a single point of failure, and the accounts that survive are the ones that were small enough to be wrong about. Splitting across 3–6 traders with different styles reduces the impact of any one of them being a grid.

What none of this gives you

There is no checklist that makes copying safe. Every question here reduces uncertainty; none of them removes it. Past performance does not determine future results, and the rating is a way to compare accounts on the same basis - nothing more.