Demo trading allows novice market traders to learn the ropes in a simulated environment without risking any of their starting capital.

Trading the cryptocurrency market successfully entails a significant amount of skill, concentration, and most importantly, experience. Unfortunately, gaining experience typically involves jumping in head first and learning on your own dime. The losses suffered by new traders peak during this period, when their technical and fundamental knowledge is at its lowest.

Here are five platforms that make trading the cryptocurrency market easier for newcomers with the use of demo trading. This provides an opportunity to trade using a dummy account, where real funds aren’t at risk.

Top 5 Demo Trading Platforms

BitMEX

BitMEX also features demo trading in addition to offering spot, leveraged and perpetual trading on eight different cryptocurrencies. BitMEX’s version of demo trading, on the BitMEX Testnet, demands that users sign up using a separate account, but once inside they have access to much of BitMEX’s peripheral trading aids, including a long history of detailed deep-dives into the most precarious aspects of crypto market trading. 

Upon registration users are funded with a demo-version of 0.01 XBT – BitMEX’s ticker symbol for Bitcoin. Liquidity and prices on the testnet may differ from data on the live exchange, but no real losses can be incurred, and it serves as a useful way to quickly get up to speed with how the platform operates.

eToro

Upon signing up to eToro, users can gain access to an immediate virtual balance of USD with which they can execute demo trades in a practice environment. On eToro, traders have access to various financial trading markets and instruments such as currency pairs, ETFs, CFDs and commodities. 

While demo traders gain access to eToro’s suite of data and market analysis tools, some features remain restricted until users fund their accounts with real currency. eToro also features copy trading, where users can benefit from the wisdom of veteran traders by selecting an option to automatically emulate their trades.

Bingbon

When a new user registers with Bingbon, their exchange wallet is automatically filled with a bounty of 100,000 VST (Virtual USD). Each token represents one US dollar, and is the native currency of Bingbon’s demo trading platform. 

To begin demo trading, simply select the VST currency in the exchange wallet via the dropdown menu. All trades using VST take place in a virtual environment, and allow users to practice derivatives trading, learn the user interface, and test out new trading strategies.

Bingbon currently has twelve digital assets available to trade including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Chainlink, Cardano, and most major coins.  Besides cryptocurrencies, Bingbon also offers access to FOREX, commodities and other popular instruments in financial trading, including the S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, DJIA, and Nikkei 225, as well as copy trading.

Demo trading on Bingbon can be used hand-in-hand with Trading View’s visual analysis tools, allowing users to chart and graph trading strategies in detail. The user interface is compatible with seven different languages including English, Chinese and Russian.

Altcoin Fantasy

Altcoin Fantasy’s approach to demo trading sees new registrants given free virtual currency to use in one of its regular trading competitions, which run constantly. Incentives in the form of bonus prizes and various contests keep traders interested while learning how cryptocurrency trading works, adding a unique spin on using simulated demo trading.

Altcoin Fantasy offers up a wealth of information relevant to new players in the form of educational videos, articles and coin trend reports. Because it’s a simulated trading environment, users can choose from over 1,400 different coins and tokens from across the cryptocurrency landscape. As always, demo trading is purely educational, or in this case, for play, and does not incur any losses to the user.

Bitsgap

Bitsgap offers up a wide range of useful trading tools for new and experienced traders, including demo trading. New registrants are granted 1 fake bitcoin which they can use as their practice funds in a number of popular trading scenarios in Bitsgap’s simulated environment.

Bitsgap’s free demo trading account is valid for 14 days before users are asked to sign up to one of two available subscription models. The basic subscription costs $19/month, and limits users to a $25k monthly trading limit. The pro account costs $110/month, and the trading limit is uncapped without restriction.