In this article we would like to explain what the ‘social trading features’ of Blockport are, how they work, and why we implement them in our exchange environment.

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Blockport is the first social crypto exchange, based on a hybrid-decentralized architecture. We focus on user-friendliness and building a knowledge-sharing community. Members can use the Blockport token (BPT) to follow or copy high performing traders.

Why social trading features?

As passionate crypto traders we experienced first hand that people in our direct network developed the urge (and FOMO) to invest in cryptocurrencies.

People approach us on a daily basis with questions: what coins or tokens should we invest in? what broker, exchange or wallet should we use?

This triggered us to setup a quick survey to validate these challenges among a wider audience.

In total around 100 people participated, and the results gave us two clear findings.

A significant amount of respondents (70–80%) that did not own Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies said:

“I would like to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, but I do not know enough about Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to actually invest in it.”

… or…

“I do not want to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, because I do not know enough about Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.”

Despite the fact that our survey cannot be used as valid statistical research, we concluded that the most important factor in investing in cryptocurrencies is: knowledge. Or rather, the lack of knowledge.

After conducting this survey we experienced that even some of our tech-savvy millennial friends, who actually own Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, were still struggling to understand all the different crypto services available on the web.

It was clear to us something needed to change.

This inspired us to start Blockport.

Blockport: The first social crypto exchange.

You may think that Blockport is just another Bitcoin or cryptocurrency exchange, however, this is not the case.

In fact we aim to do something far more interesting, by addressing one of the key pain points in the mission to mass adoption: usability.

Or rather, the lack of usability.

In our honest opinion, many crypto exchanges fail to address this effectively.

The crypto space is created by tech-savvy people, for tech-savvy people. When you offer a solution to store value, the need to build trust is essential.

People develop trust in something that they can comprehend.

Therefore, people want to understand how this new paradigm of blockchain and cryptocurrencies works, in order for them to build trust.

To achieve understanding, we go one step further.

According to Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory(1), people learn from one another via observation, imitation, and modeling.

The Social Learning Theory has been useful in explaining how people learn new things and develop new behaviours by observing other people.

Bandura outlined three types of modeling stimuli:

Live models, where a person is demonstrating the desired behavior. Verbal instruction, in which a person describes the desired behavior in detail and instructs the participant in how to engage in the behavior. Symbolic, in which modeling occurs by means of the media, including literature, radio, television and the Internet.

We used Bandura’s first two models as a basis for our social trading features. In the next section we will explain in more detail what this exactly means.

Insider info: The smallest unit of our Blockport token (BPT) is named after Bandura. 1 BPT equals 100.000.000 Banduras.

“Bandura meets Nakamoto”

According to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, members can effectively learn how to trade when they have the tools to mimic each others’ trading activities.

Therefore, Blockport offers our members a professional platform where they can demonstrate their skills, and explain their strategies to the community.

Beginner traders can pay experienced traders Blockport tokens (BPT) to follow or copy their trading activities.

In return, experienced traders can earn BPT to share their portfolio, knowledge and insights with beginners.

As a result, Blockport offers the platform to create a win-win scenario for both beginners and experienced traders.

Beginners can learn from experienced traders and experienced traders are incentivised to share their knowledge with beginners.

Additionally, this opens up a new stream of revenue for experienced traders, next to earning returns on trading.

Excited about what we do at Blockport?

We are happy to hear your thoughts!

You can read more about our future plans in the whitepaper on our website, or directly ask us a question in the Blockport Community at Telegram.

If you wish to participate in our Crowdsale starting 24th of January 2018, you can sign-up here for our whitelisting.

Sources used in this article:

(1) https://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html

(2) https://explorable.com/social-learning-theory