eToro launches cryptocurrency trading strategy based on Twitter sentiment

Trading platform eToro launched on Tuesday a social media sentiment-based trading strategy for its cryptocurrency traders.

The strategy, aptly named TheTIE-LongOnly CopyPortfolio, is available to eToro users through a partnership with The TIE, a cryptocurrency data analytics platform. eToro users trading this strategy will open cryptocurrency trades based on positive sentiments on Twitter.

According to The TIE, the platform's "proprietary machine learning and language processing models ingest 850 million tweets per day, quantifying the positive and negative tone of conversations on Twitter." The platform then leverages this data and allocates trades based "on positive sentiment, algorithmically rebalancing once per month."

“In traditional markets, retail investors have historically lagged behind the ‘smart money’ when it comes to the data and tools available to them,” said Guy Hirsch, US Managing Director of eToro. “This puts individual investors at a major disadvantage. In the spirit of crypto and decentralized technology, we believe that offering institutional-grade tools to every investor will level the playing field and democratize investing.”

The TIE launched this trading strategy in October 2017. So far, the algorithm has generated a 281.% return after fees, compared to a 41% return generated by Bitcoin alone, according to an eToro blog post.