The making of retail investors and traders

Retail investors and traders are non-professional market participants who invest and trade individually, typically with less capital than institutional investors. The proliferation of retail investment is one of the hallmarks of the ‘financialisation of everyday life’ (Langley, Reference Langley2006; Pellandini-Simányi, Reference Pellandini-Simányi, Borch and Wosnitzer2021). The economic sociology literature has reflected on the structural conditions leading laypeople to become retail investors/traders. These include the retrenchment of the welfare state and the individualisation of pension provision via investment (Langley, Reference Langley2006; Langley and Leaver, Reference Langley and Leaver2012; De Jong McKenzie, Reference De Jong McKenzie2025); the popularisation of neoliberal discourses promoting individual risk-management (Langley, Reference Langley2006), ‘resilience’ (Clarke, Reference Clarke2015) and ‘risk-thinking’ (Ailon, Reference Ailon2021); the democratisation of market access through minimal capital requirements (Thomas, Reference Thomas2016) and the availability of fractional shares (Schwarcz and Bourret, Reference Schwarcz and Bourret2023); and the effects of social media in empowering retail investor communities, exemplified by the GameStop saga (Hansen, Reference Hansen2022).

Research on why people become involved and remain active in investment communities despite the significant risks that this entails focuses on two interrelated dynamics. The first is the impact of shared discourses, which can operate as modes of sense-making and storytelling (Bourne, Reference Bourne2017; Yogarajah, Reference Yogarajah2022), underwrite narratives of financial freedom (Fridman, Reference Fridman2016) and encourage magical thinking (Lee, Reference Lee2020). Research on crypto and meme stock trading communities has explored how these communities are sustained by anti-establishment, utopian democratic narratives (Hayes, Reference Hayes2019; Jones and Hietanen, Reference Jones and Hietanen2023; De Keere et al., Reference De Keere, Trans and Milan2025). Such narratives often rely on sociotechnical imaginaries (De Keere et al., Reference De Keere, Trans and Milan2025) and are shaped by finfluencers who help to translate abstract financial concepts to laypeople (Hayes and Ben-Shmuel, Reference Hayes and Ben-Shmuel2024).

Second, research drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and performativity studies has explored how platform scripts encourage user engagement and shape user behaviour. These approaches – which inform our article – view markets as assemblages consisting of heterogeneous elements, such as technical devices, regulations, discourses, and human market participants that are assembled into associative networks, equipped ‘with the capacity of acting in different ways depending on their configuration’ (Callon, Reference Callon, MacKenzie, Muniesa and Siu2007: 320; see also Callon, Reference Callon1998, Latour, Reference Latour2005).

This second strand emphasises the technological features that keep lay investors engaged through gamification (Lai and Langley, Reference Lai and Langley2024) and nudging (Doyuran, Reference Doyuran2024). Van der Heide and Želinský (Reference Van der Heide and Želinský2021) suggest that there is a tension within discourses promoting gamification: on the one hand, gamification promises to democratise finance by making it accessible to less knowledgeable lay investors; on the other, gamification is designed in accordance with the goals of the platforms, often encouraging frequent stock trading which resembles gambling behaviour, and discouraging long-term investments. Indeed, gamification has been shown to create attachment to apps and platforms (Cochoy, Reference Cochoy2025), often through the emotional rewards they provide (Threadgold et al., Reference Threadgold, Shannon, Haro, Cook, Davies, Coffey, Farrugia, Matthews, Healy and Burrows2025), to increase trading volumes (Dorn and Sengmueller, Reference Dorn and Sengmueller2009; Chapkovski et al., Reference Chapkovski, Khapko and Zoican2024), and to increase the length and frequency of interactions, contributing to habit-formation (Van der Heide and Želinský, Reference Van der Heide and Želinský2021; Doyuran, Reference Doyuran2024). Beyond increasing engagement, gamification has been linked to heightened investor risk-taking (Tan, Reference Tan2021; Chapkovski et al., Reference Chapkovski, Khapko and Zoican2025).

Roscoe’s (Reference Roscoe2013, Reference Roscoe2015) work moves beyond the effects of platform interfaces on behaviour by arguing that lay investors’ ideas about the market and investment strategies – and even the very subjectivity of these investors – are created through their engagement with such devices: ‘Investors make use of devices, for example, software programmes, magazines and training courses and printed lists, investment shows and seminars, inscribed with such strategies to produce a version of the market in which they can participate’ (Roscoe, Reference Roscoe2015: 194). Roscoe highlights the importance of device scripts and expert training seminars and chat boards, not only in providing lay investors with ideas on how to invest (by giving them the impression that there is ‘hidden knowledge’ they can get access to), but also in shaping their economic subjectivity: ‘non-professional investors are constructed by their interactions with the investment services market’ (Roscoe, Reference Roscoe2015: 194). Roscoe’s approach thus combines the previous two surveyed above in its conception of cultural narratives and technological devices as co-constitutive of investor subjects.

Roscoe and Howorth (Reference Roscoe and Howorth2009) note that lay investors hold diverse understandings of ‘stock market ontology, i.e. how the market is’ (Reference Roscoe and Howorth2009: 211), which influence the calculative techniques that they employ. Generally, the use of technical analysis is linked to certain sets of underlying beliefs about the market shared by short-term oriented traders. In contrast, more long-term-oriented lay investors place stock in fundamental analysis and look for price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios or other indicators that signify undervalued stocks. Online brokers adapt to these two groups’ needs, by designing their websites to perform the consumers they envision (Reference RoscoeRoscoe, 2015, Reference Roscoe2013). This suggests a mutually-reinforcing relationship between the investment/trading styles that emerge on trading platforms and the devices built into such platforms: ontologies and calculative techniques are scripted into and reinforced by distinct approaches to market analysis and corresponding devices capable of performing them; once people form specific market ontologies and investor subjectivities, they choose matching devices and strategies.

Engaging social media users

Unlike most traditional broker platforms, many social trading platforms, including Binance and eToro, can be used without initial deposits: users can engage in their social feeds without ever trading on the platform. In this sense, social trading platforms are similar to fitness apps, where users can see how much, how fast, and how long their contacts run or cycle, comment on each other’s achievements, and – depending on the functionality of the app – adopt another user’s workout routines. As prior research on fitness apps shows, these features encourage users to increasingly engage in fitness activities (Charitsis et al., Reference Charitsis, Yngfalk and Skålén2018).

Related research has shown how social media platforms keep users engaged through the offering of an ‘avatar of me’ which attracts validation, by creating a sense of community through the notion of a ‘collaborative self’, and through pressurising users to be ‘always on’ (Turkle, Reference Turkle2011: 189, 176, 170). As Stsiampkouskaya et al. (Reference Stsiampkouskaya, Joinson, Piwek and Ahlbom2021) show, social media users post more frequently when they receive more comments or likes than expected, and tend to feel negative emotions and change the content of their subsequent posts when they receive less feedback than expected. Crucial within this dynamic is the visibility of users by other users, which creates pressure to create content aligning with what the social feed algorithm favours (Cotter, Reference Cotter2019). Additionally, platforms and creators increase engagement by offering media richness (graphs, pictures) and content trustworthiness (Cao et al., Reference Cao, Meadows, Wong and Xia2021). These findings can be fruitfully applied to understand engagement on social trading platforms.

Consumers as co-creators

In this paper, we analyse how social trading platforms steer users towards increasing engagement not only through encouraging the use of their social media channels, but also by facilitating co-creation on their platforms. The literature on consumer co-creation explores how and why consumers increasingly contribute to the production processes of companies, often through the collaborative shaping of product and service experiences, a concept that Ramaswamy and Ozcan (Reference Ramaswamy and Ozcan2016: 93) term ‘joint agential experiential creation’. Applied to social media platforms, this literature emphasises how even small user actions like commenting, liking, or following contribute to value-creation, and turn users into co-creators (Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2017).

The literature in this area provides a number of key insights into the process of involving consumers in co-creation activities, which are one of the mechanisms through which social trading platforms sustain and deepen user engagement. As Zwick et al. (Reference Zwick, Bonsu and Darmody2008) argue, companies steer consumers into co-creator roles by creating structured environments where consumer creativity can be guided, channelled, and ultimately captured as value. This voluntary work is promoted by a discourse of empowerment suffused with ideas about freedom, self-expression, and community (Zwick et al., Reference Zwick, Bonsu and Darmody2008). Cova and Dalli (Reference Cova and Dalli2009) point out that consumers are often motivated by social and psychological, rather than financial rewards: ‘Consumers work in order to feel satisfied, gratified (on the personal level) and, sometimes, socially recognised’ (Cova and Dalli, Reference Cova and Dalli2009: 326) as they ‘pursue personal purposes, such as satisfaction, pleasure, commitment, social interaction, etc.’ (Reference Cova and Dalli2009: 325). Similarly, Caliskan (Reference Caliskan2022) observes that joy is a core driver of co-creation in his study of a cryptocurrency community.

In the context of social trading platforms, prior research has identified how users are encouraged to engage in co-creation by producing content for social feeds – and in doing so – drive engagement and contribute to marketing in a role which resembles that of the ‘finfluencer’ (Gregersen and Ørmen, Reference Gregersen and Ørmen2025). Finfluencers can be defined as ‘individuals or small-scale organisations who seek to make a living, directly or indirectly, from social media activities related to money management, investing, and household economy’ (Gregersen and Ørmen, Reference Gregersen and Ørmen2025: 38). The strategies which finfluencers adopt within this role are dependent on the platform (and the incentives and inducements of it), audience specifics, individual expertise/credentials, strategic partners, and ‘the monetisation mechanism central to the strategy’ (Gregersen and Ørmen, Reference Gregersen and Ørmen2025: 53). If a platform is not aligned with the goals of an influencer or vice versa, friction arises.

A second co-creator role involves users becoming copied traders and/or accumulating followers. In this role, users act as quasi-fund managers and/or wealth advisers: other users automatically copy their trades, entrust the management of their portfolios to them, and follow their advice. The literature on fund managers/advisers provides insights that are also applicable to this category of co-creators. Lai (Reference Lai2016), for instance, shows that financial advisers are embedded in distinctive financial ecologies or socio-material configurations, consisting of numerous characteristics (employment status, types of financial products, remuneration structures, clients, administrative support, and branding/reputation) which influence their professional practices. Similarly, fund managers are also performed by socio-material configurations (see Beunza and Stark, Reference Beunza and Stark2004; Preda, Reference Preda2009; Arjaliès et al., Reference Arjaliès, Grant, Hardie, MacKenzie and Svetlova2017). Taken together, both the finfluencer literature and the literature on fund managers and wealth advisers suggest that platforms need to align various socio-material elements to enable increasing engagement through respective co-creator roles. These roles contribute to engagement both directly by driving trades and investments, and indirectly by embodying the valued qualities and status on the platform.

In summary, this article examines how social trading platforms encourage laypeople to become investors or traders and to engage progressively more with the investing and trading world, drawing primarily on Roscoe’s (Reference Roscoe2013, Reference Roscoe2015) approach. Given the social aspects of social trading platforms and the centrality of co-creator roles in encouraging investing and trading, we complement Roscoe’s approach with insights drawn from the literature on social media platforms and co-creation.

Socialisation: Learning skills and the culture

The initial socialisation phase, primarily occurring through platforms’ ‘Academies’, is a key discursive element that shapes users’ market ontologies by establishing specific knowledge frameworks, core beliefs, and cultural norms. First-time visitors to social trading platforms can be overwhelmed by complex interfaces featuring charts, order books, price tickers, and unfamiliar technical terminology (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The complexity of Binance Spot trading in full display. Screenshot taken on 7 May 2026.

Additionally, new users are confronted with a social feed containing technical language, and terms such as ‘fundamental analysis’ or ‘technical analysis’ which they might not understand. Early on, however, newcomers entering the platform encounter a ‘knowledge section’ or ‘Academy’, located prominently and linked in several places within the platform. According to Binance, 44 million people used its Academy in 2024, while eToro’s educational resources attracted over 800,000 visitors in 2023 (Wikitoro, 2025). Explaining the functionalities of the platform would be enough to enable its use. However, sections directly explaining the use of the platform itself are the minority. The majority of content is concerned with explaining how the market works, providing frameworks to understand and navigate it, and introducing a shared culture around it.

The knowledge sections of the two platforms fulfil several important interrelated social functions. First, they establish a shared basis of ‘objective’ knowledge, creating a common reference point for their users. They legitimise this knowledge by mirroring the education system both in their language and structure. They call the knowledge section an ‘Academy’. Both offer ‘courses’, like the ‘Beginner Track’ on Binance which follows a ‘Syllabus’; or ‘Investing 101’ on eToro which offers users a survey of fundamental knowledge. Courses include ‘Lessons’ or ‘Modules’ imitating the structure of formal educational programmes. At the end of each lesson/course, participants can answer a quiz, share the result, and (on Binance) even receive certificates. Users can progress their knowledge/skills by taking more difficult courses on both platforms.

Importantly, the knowledge sections not only provide information on the platform and the market but also drive users to adopt a certain relationship to the market and to themselves as they act within it. In doing so, they frame investing and trading as activities in which users can develop different levels of skill. One key factor in these skill differences, identified by both platforms, is the ability of the user to control their emotions. For example, eToro advises users to ‘avoid emotional investing’ since ‘emotional investing is usually bad investing’ (eToro, 2025c). Binance likewise links trading and investing skills to being less emotional. The market overall is painted as prone to emotional reactions; therefore, a skilled trader can take advantage of ‘the market cycles’ and ‘market sentiment’ (Binance, 2025c).

Structuring the knowledge sections as a progressive academy serves another important social function: creating the shared belief that skill differences in investing and trading exist and can be overcome. This is essential for trading platforms because it creates a mindset that it is possible to become a successful investor who can outperform the market – and that this is merely a matter of progressing and acquiring a sufficient skillset. Establishing a hierarchy between more and less knowledgeable investors and traders, moreover, opens a frame which rationalises the strategy of copy trading and strengthens the impression that content created by other (more skilled) users might be valuable.

Guiding users via monetary reward structures

The second key element driving engagement pathways is the monetary reward structures offered to co-creators by the platforms. This structural element reflects which activities are central for the platform, providing a blueprint for socialising and financial activities (see also Gregersen and Ørmen, Reference Gregersen and Ørmen2025). Put simply – eToro creates a reward system around its copy trading offering, while Binance offers ways to profit from followers both by content production and by copy trading.

On eToro, everyone can, by default, have their investments copied. However, only users who apply to and are approved for the ‘Popular Investor Program’ are eligible for monetary and other rewards. Being a ‘Popular Investor’ brings tiered benefits but also progressively more requirements that shape the co-creator’s ‘investor-self’.

The core monetary reward for copied traders consists of monthly payments from eToro, which are calculated as 1.5% of the annual ‘assets under copy (AUC)’. This number is based on both the number of people that copy them, and the amount of assets managed. This reward structure directly impacts the trading activities of ‘Popular Investors’ by putting less pressure on them to act when portfolio performance decreases, unlike on Binance, where receiving rewards is tied to performance and less to assets under management. ‘Popular Investors’ are also obliged to keep their risk scores lower, further incentivising investing activities, while decreasing the likelihood that traders (who typically have higher-risk scores than investors) are included in the programme. Overall, the reward structure steers ‘Popular Investors’ more towards a longer-term orientation. The programme additionally offers a progression pathway with four levels that foster ever-increasing engagement with the platform, requiring further investment and educational prerequisites. The tiered system along with various ranking systems, like ‘the most copied traders’, promotes engagement and trading through competitiveness and peer comparison (see also Andraszewicz et al., Reference Andraszewicz, Kaszás, Zeisberger and Hölscher2023). In short, eToro’s reward structure helps to enact an investing culture on the platform, manifested both in actual social trading activities, and in social feed content and interactions.

Beyond these direct monetary incentives, eToro requires ‘Popular Investors’ to socially engage on the platform in specific ways which shape interaction patterns. For instance, reaching the second tier of the programme requires the creation of monthly posts of at least 100 words. Further requirements include displaying the user’s full name in their profile, a professional picture, and a bio explaining the user’s ‘investor-self’. In relation to clients copying their trades, ‘Popular Investors’ have ‘[…] an obligation to communicate with these individuals, establish trust – maintaining a professional approach at all times’ (eToro, 2025e: 4). They are expected to bring ‘added value’ and ‘high quality content to the community’ in return for ‘increased exposure’, while avoiding ‘misleading’ their copiers.

Binance, meanwhile, offers multiple independent reward systems that shape platform engagement patterns. One of the core dynamics shaping the social practices on Binance remains hidden if one only considers the formal reward system. The strong connection between market sentiment and cryptocurrency prices, a result of the special status of this asset class, plays an implicit but critical role in shaping the content on the social feed. This dynamic becomes especially visible when Binance launches new cryptocurrencies via what are labelled initial coin offerings (ICOs) – a reference to IPOs on the stock market. After launch, owners of new cryptocurrencies typically flood the social feed with ‘pump and dump’ or ‘shilling’ posts attempting to boost their price by generating attention. Here, the belief that prices can be influenced by market sentiment has an apparent impact on content creation, leading users to post highly similar, low-effort posts advertising new cryptocurrencies. This dynamic does not occur on eToro because the platform does not offer volatile penny stocks that might be manipulated in a similar way.

With respect to formal financial incentives, Binance’s reward system is geared more towards encouraging co-creation of social feed content and recruitment of new users in comparison to eToro. ‘Write to earn’ on Binance Square compensates users for generating trading activity via posts on the social feed, in a reward structure akin to that of standard digital marketing. This is consistent with Binance’s business model and its reliance on frequent trading. ‘Binance Square Creators’ can unlock certain other benefits and commissions based on follower numbers and the quality of content generated. This rewards people who drive engagement and promote products sold on the platform. Binance also rewards users for bringing new users to the platform via its referral system, a feature which is not present on eToro.

Taken together, this reward system encourages a higher output of (popular) content and aligns with trading’s ontology of the market as driven by mass psychology. Market sentiment, which can be influenced by garnering awareness or attention, drives price, rendering social feed content production and engagement essential for trading. At the same time, the way in which Binance rewards content popularity opens a pathway towards the production of more diverse content unrelated to trading or investing such as humorous posts and memes. Engagement, in this context, can be rewarded for its entertainment value alone, while on eToro no parallel reward structures exist.

Finally, Binance also offers rewards within its Copy trading programme. The ‘Popular Investors’ of Binance are labelled ‘lead traders’. Anyone can become a lead trader by setting up a portfolio with a minimum of 500 USDT. While on eToro the benefits for ‘Popular Investors’ are not tied directly to the success of the portfolio – only to the number of copiers and assets under management – lead traders on Binance are rewarded based on profit-making and commissions. Tying rewards to success pressures lead traders to perform and trade more frequently for additional benefits.

Overall, the differing reward structures offered by eToro and Binance function as key drivers of the modes of engagement which these platforms hope to cultivate – a more investing-oriented form within eToro and a more trading-oriented one within Binance. While most users do not benefit from these rewards, the reward systems shape the behaviour of the highest status, most influential, and most visible users. Since these are also the most socially active users, the social feeds of each platform are shaped extensively by these monetary reward structures.

The starting point: User profile integration and separation

The implementation and design of user profiles are the third key mechanism – a socio-material one – for steering users along different engagement pathways. The elements of these profiles – the information which they display and how they are presented – encourage different interaction patterns, steering users towards copy trading in the case of eToro and the social feed in the case of Binance.

Unlike other investment and trading platforms where privacy is paramount, social trading platforms automatically create an anonymous public profile for every user. This serves as the starting point for socialisation on the platform, because posting and copy trading become automatically tied to a profile. Users can have a social feed profile and a copied trader profile; these can be either integrated (one profile for both) or separated (two distinct profiles). This difference in profile implementation has considerable impacts on how people socialise on the platforms in question because the integration of both profiles, as in the case of eToro, leads to an overall focus on copy trading technology, while the separation of profiles on Binance allows for different interactions – and ‘selves’ – depending on the profile being used. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) and ANT, we argue that the profiles act as devices scripting (1) an investing-oriented quasi-fund manager role in the case of eToro, (2) a finfluencer role in the case of Binance’s Square profile, and (3) a trading-oriented quasi-fund manager role in the case of Binance’s copy trading profile.

eToro creates one integrated public profile representing the user’s ‘investing-self’. Every user on eToro is by default able to copy trades and to be copied, even if they are not participating in the ‘Popular Investor Program’. While this profile also acts as the social feed presence others can ‘follow’, the lack of monetary rewards for this form of participation means that the ‘content-creating-self’ on this platform remains deeply tied to copy trading.

In contrast, Binance initially creates a profile solely for social feed participation which represents the user’s ‘content-creating-self’. While this profile can be followed, it offers no connection to the copy trading profile apart from a hyperlink. The copy trading profile must be set up independently by opting into becoming a ‘lead trader’, creating the ‘trading-self’.

Importantly, these design choices cohere with differing reward systems on each platform. Since eToro users can only receive monetary rewards as copied ‘Popular Investors’, they are steered towards creating an integrated ‘investing-self’, generating content with the goal of gaining copiers in mind. Binance, by rewarding the ‘content-creating-self’ and the ‘trading-self’ in ways which differ, allows users to pursue content creation and trading in ways which can be completely detached from one another.

These dynamics are further reinforced by the structure and content of profile pages on each platform. eToro’s default profiles (Figure 2) display more detailed financial information, resembling ‘Key Information Documents’ for ETFs, as well as elements conducive to creating trust, both of which are essential for attracting copiers. The initial profile page is structured around portfolio performance, including a risk score (Figure 2, #10), ‘Popular Investor’-level (#1), amount of copiers (#7) and followers (#6), and investment style (#5). eToro encourages the use of real names by requiring them for the ‘Popular Investor Program’ and rewarding normal users with a verification tick symbolising authenticity. Default settings displaying the investor’s country, and eToro’s policy allowing only one account per user further reinforce the focus on creating trust and ensuring authenticity.

Figure 2.

The public user profile on eToro (highlights in red). Screenshot taken on 7 May 2026.

The profile page offers a portfolio overview with performance displayed on a large graph, a breakdown of yearly performance, a number of key statistics, information about the content of the portfolio, and the possibility of conducting chart analysis based on it (Figure 2, #8 and #2). The return displayed for year-to-date (YTD) and 2 years (2Y) implies a longer-term performance focus (#9). The risk score, ranging from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), serves as an important orientation point for both the profile owners, and users who want to copy a profile matching their risk profile. In a box on the right side (Figure 2), the two big numbers for ‘Copiers’ and ‘Followers’ serve as another orientation point for people looking for trustworthiness or reliability.

eToro prominently displays investment style via two automatically assigned elements (#5): an asset group and sector (based on the portfolio), such as ‘Software’ or ‘Retail’, and an ‘Investment strategies’ badge based on the users’ investment activities, like ‘Value’ or ‘Momentum’, which can be changed if users opt to portray themselves differently. These display settings make it easier for potential copiers to understand the strategies of the traders they wish to follow.

Default eToro profile settings steer users to disclose more about their ‘investing-selves’ in order to facilitate trust-building. There is a short and longer ‘bio’ available for self-description. It is often used to display investing-relevant skills, like scholarly achievements (for instance, ‘PhD in machine learning’) that signify competence. It can also be used to explain the investor’s strategy in more detail, all of which amplifies trust and encourages potential copiers. The user’s social feed is less visible as it is only reachable by scrolling down (Figure 2, #11). It contains posts, but hides the comments a user makes unless viewers switch the default filter option.

In contrast, Binance makes much less initial information about profiles available, both about the users and their strategies (Figure 3). On top of the social feed profile, users can include a short self-description. Users typically choose a more anonymous nickname and avatar in comparison to eToro users (Figure 3, #1). This is explained by the fact that trust in users here is considerably less important due to the lack of copy trading integration. Attention is shifted from the identity and trustworthiness of the user to the information and commentary which they disseminate, which is more important in trading in general: trading thrives not on accurate information, but information that moves the price, no matter how this is achieved.

Figure 3.

The public user profile for the Square on Binance (highlights in light-green). Screenshot taken on 7 May 2026.

Additionally, Binance profiles display numbers showing how many people the user follows, the number of followers which the user has, how many people liked the user’s content, and how many shared it (#4). Trading activity and portfolio data is private by default and – when shared – is only accessible to followers, while also being less comprehensive than eToro’s. Social feed activity (#7) takes up more space and contains posts and comments – both dynamic information changing more quickly – by default. This additional space serves as another design element which enables a trading environment through its promotion of dynamic and rapidly-changing information. At the same time, the advanced search function (absent on eToro) facilitates access to new information (#3), while the ‘Trending Topics’ (#8) function enables keeping track of new and important topics. Features like the ‘Creator Center’ (#6) offer tools (and even a ‘Creator Academy’) that enable the streamlining of content production, scripting a finfluencer role.

Binance users can set up an additional ‘lead trader’ profile used for copy trading (Figure 4). Located in a completely different section of the website, it offers no link to the user’s social feed profile. While eToro limits users to a single public profile tied to their personal trading activity, a Binance ‘lead trader’ profile can manage two separate portfolios that function independently of the user’s main account. A ‘lead trader’ profile includes a short description that can be used to describe the trading strategy further (Figure 4, #1). Although Binance assigns ‘badges’ to the ‘lead trader’ profile indicating the strategy like ‘Day trading’, or ‘High leverage’, it usually contains much less information in comparison to eToro. The number of copiers is displayed (#5). Otherwise, the profile is focused on performance, featuring ‘Profit and Loss’ (PnL) as the default filter next to return on investment (ROI) (#7). In contrast to eToro, Binance defaults to performance tracking over a very short time frame of seven days, only going up to 90 days maximum if the filter is adjusted, signifying that their copy trading is more directed towards trading than investing.

Figure 4.

The same user profile for a ‘lead trader’ on Binance copy trading (highlights in light-green). Screenshot taken on 7 May 2026.

In summary, eToro’s integrated profile structure and emphasis on displaying performance metrics steer users towards its core copy trading offering. In line with what can be observed on other social media (see Turkle, Reference Turkle2011), it enables users to create an ‘investor-self’, or act as an investing-oriented quasi-fund manager or wealth adviser. Its personal elements serve to build trust and reassure copiers, aligning with the needs of investors wanting to engage further along the respective pathway. Conversely, Binance separates the social feed profile and trading account from the ‘lead trader’ profile, which makes the profiles less personal and creates less trust. This design element, combined with a shorter time frame of performance tracking displayed on the profile, is more compatible with trading, and contributes to steering users along this pathway. At the same time, the separation of the social and ‘lead trader’ profiles on Binance creates more diverse engagement possibilities by enabling the creation of at least two different virtual personas: one a ‘content-creating-self’ acting as finfluencer, and one a ‘trading-self’ acting as trading-oriented quasi-fund manager.

Social rewards: The varying importance of followers and copiers

As on social media platforms, interactions on social trading platforms are driven not only by financial but also by social rewards, like gathering followers or receiving feedback (comments, likes) (Stsiampkouskaya et al., Reference Stsiampkouskaya, Joinson, Piwek and Ahlbom2021; Threadgold et al., Reference Threadgold, Shannon, Haro, Cook, Davies, Coffey, Farrugia, Matthews, Healy and Burrows2025; Cochoy, Reference Cochoy2025). The fourth key aspect structuring user engagement is the design of the social reward system, which steers users through a combination of normative and socio-material elements.

On social trading platforms, people can either gain ‘Copiers’ or ‘Followers’. The importance of each form of social reward is dependent on the ideal pathway promoted by each platform through the design of user interactions. eToro, which offers financial compensation based on the number and wealth of copiers, offers no direct monetary way to benefit from followers – although followers can yield social rewards. Binance offers several ways to gain followers and more strongly encourages users to do so.

Copiers, with their money on the line, are mainly interested in how a portfolio performs over time; thus, the number of copiers a user enjoys is an indicator of trader/investor ability across both eToro and Binance. Differences in socialisation shape what copiers value, however. Investors are more concerned with performance over a longer period (Figure 2, #8). This is reflected in eToro’s design of the ‘Popular Investor’ search filters, which highlight one-year performance, and the user profiles themselves which show performance over a period of up to two years. Additionally, the prominent focus on the number of copiers that users enjoy on eToro reflects the platform’s preference for stability of performance (signified by trust over time) over short-term performance. The profiles on eToro often date back a long time and include performance data for the whole period. On Binance, the focus is short-term performance: copy trader comparison pages default to displaying seven days of performance (and display only a maximum of ninety even if the filter is adjusted). ‘Lead trader’ profiles on Binance are usually more recent, displaying no data on past successes or failures, which can only be inferred from the ‘Closed Portfolios’ indicator on a user’s profile page (Figure 4, #6).

Followers are consumers interested primarily in the social output of the users they follow. The reasons for this interest vary: some users are attracted by the memes that co-creators post, while others are drawn to insights or knowledge, political opinions, or even profile features unrelated to trading, like the attractiveness of users’ profile pictures. Follower count is thus largely an indication of popularity rather than an ability to perform in the market, and is typically – if displayed on the same profile (Figure 2, #6) – higher than the number of copiers (#7) since following involves no risk of losing money.

Differing socialisation paths influence what kind of content garners attention, and, ultimately, what is produced. On eToro it is more likely that users pay attention to investing-related content; on Binance popular content can be trading-related, but is not exclusively so, because gaining followers is a reward in itself, quite apart from attracting copy traders. Indeed, popularity on the social feed rarely translates into increased numbers of copiers. Instead, successful copied traders/investors can more easily translate their trading achievements into followers, provided the design of the profile page allows other users to locate that success.

eToro shapes its design choices around its copy trading functionality. On eToro, a user can only gain followers if direct profile visitors click on an ambiguous ‘+’-button (Figure 2, #3). This button does not explicitly say ‘follow’, but instead, adds the user profile to the visitor’s watchlist and increases the visibility of that user’s posts in the follower’s social feed. Users cannot follow people directly via a button on social feed posts. Adding users to the watchlist highlights their portfolio performance (across a 1 month timeframe), risk level, and copier count (as well as change in % of that number). This indicates that the follow function on eToro remains closely linked to converting followers to copiers. Copiers, on the other hand, can be gained more easily by visitors pressing the highly visible, green, and self-explanatory ‘Copy’-button next to the watchlist button (Figure 2, #4).

In contrast, Binance, more focused on its social feed, steers its users towards social rewards independent from copy trading. Profile pages implement a conspicuous, straightforward yellow ‘Follow’ button encouraging users to follow each other (Figure 3, #2). This button also appears directly in social feed posts, eliminating the need to visit profiles directly. By default, followers see new posts by followed users, but not their trades or portfolio unless settings adjustments are used to make this information visible. Even if this is done, there is no connection to followed users’ separate portfolios as ‘lead traders’, and the copy trading functionality. Copy trading occurs in an entirely separate website section featuring advanced filters, a trader comparison tool and a big yellow ‘Copy’-button (Figure 4, #3) for copying trades. This copy trader profile includes a small star-shaped ‘Favourite’ button (#2) functionally nearly identical to the watchlist button on eToro.

To summarise, eToro and Binance place a differing emphasis on ‘Followers’ and ‘Copiers’, aligning with their respective engagement strategies. Prioritising copiers, eToro designs all aspects of its interface – even the ‘follow’ button – around enabling co-creators to attract more copiers. Binance, by having two user profiles, can steer users towards accumulating followers on the main profile, and copiers on the ‘lead trader’ profile, in a manner which resembles eToro’s method of engaging users. While these features are the core social rewards on each platform, we now turn to the social feed to see how smaller social rewards (likes, comments) can be accumulated and foster engagement.

Socialising on the social feed: Shaping engagement via design and algorithms

The last key interface design element that steers users towards different financial behaviours, interactions, and co-creator roles is the social feed, another largely socio-material mechanism. Despite superficially offering nearly identical functions, certain design choices significantly shape how users engage in the social feed, influencing the content itself, its visibility, and the content creation process, steering users towards different engagement pathways: the ‘Popular Investor’ on eToro, and the content creator (Finfluencer) and/or ‘lead trader’ on Binance.

The two platforms vary significantly in the customisability of content displayed on the social feed, a difference further amplified by algorithms determining what users see. eToro’s default ‘News Feed’ (one of four options) uses a highly selective algorithm that prioritises trending content produced by ‘Popular Investors’. Offering few customisation options, this creates a more uniform feed for all users, further favouring the visibility of ‘Popular Investors’. Further, eToro’s lack of search functionality on the social feed makes it less likely for random content generated by casual users to ever reach others.

Binance defaults to a ‘Recommended’ feed, alongside a ‘Following’ option. In contrast to eToro, this ‘Recommended’ feed is highly customisable. By offering multiple modification settings – including the option to direct ‘not interested’ feedback towards posts – Binance displays more fragmented, individualised content. This enables a more ‘democratic’ pattern of content visibility. It lays the ground for a content-driven rather than just a user-based dynamic in the popularity of posts, and in turn, encourages all users to create content which might generate engagement. Hashtags that categorise content, paired with a word search function, increase information retrievability and help to detach information exchange from feed visibility. This is crucial in allowing a higher throughput of all kinds of information to reach Binance users.

Taken together, eToro’s design choices increase ‘Popular Investor’ content visibility while limiting the visibility of content created by casual users. In contrast, Binance’s design choices allow by default for a greater variety of content to be visible and accessible on the social feed.

These design choices lead, additionally, to different dynamics of user interaction. Because eToro favours ‘Popular Investor’ content, their posts serve as central hubs for users’ socialising, since casual users’ posts have little chance of attracting attention. This centralised pattern of interaction further facilitates the accumulation of followers by ‘Popular Investors’, who can use simple strategies, like posting generic news stories or ‘spicy’ political takes, to create opportunities to attract copiers/followers. This dynamic seems to influence comments also, making them more substantial and richer in content as compared to the one-word reactions and suggestions (‘hold’, ‘buy/sell’, ‘nice’) which are common on Binance. It is also possible, however, that the nature of the information preferred by the users of each platform (fundamental versus technical analysis) in itself shapes the content of comments, lending to the greater sophistication of comments on eToro.

Across both platforms, appearing on the social feed is crucial, inviting what Cotter (Reference Cotter2019) labels the ‘visibility games’ played by co-creators on social media. eToro’s social feed algorithm, favouring content from ‘Popular Investors’, not only steers social interactions so that they take place within the posts of co-creators, but also puts pressure on users to adopt co-creator roles and follow the rules attached to the ‘Popular Investor’ role in order to gain social visibility. In contrast, Binance’s highly customisable feed algorithm and advanced content search function facilitate the visibility of more pluralistic content. This enables a different kind of social engagement which centres around generating attention, sharing rapid information, and – potentially – influencing market sentiment, all of which are crucial for the fast-paced, sentiment-driven crypto trading environment which Binance fosters.