Last Updated: March 2026
I'm Ghosty. This is the short version of why this site exists, how I run it, and what you can actually expect from me.
The 30-Second Version
AI Trading Ranked is an independent crypto trading review site run by one person (me) who trades full-time and writes about what actually works. No VC backing, no sponsored rankings, no "pay for placement" deals with exchanges.
Every review on this site is based on real money traded through the platform for at least 30 days, usually much longer. If I haven't personally used it, I don't rank it.
That's the whole model. The rest of this page is context.
Free: Crypto Trading Platform Cheat Sheet
Side-by-side fee comparison, ratings, and quick-pick recommendations for every major exchange and trading bot. Save hours of research.
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Who I Am
I go by Ghosty online. I've been trading crypto since 2020 — started as a hobbyist during the DeFi summer of 2020, blew up my first account in three weeks on leverage I didn't understand, and spent the next year reading everything I could about risk management, fee structures, and how exchanges actually work under the hood.
By 2022 I was running spot and futures positions across four exchanges simultaneously, reconciling fills in spreadsheets, and getting increasingly annoyed at how much bad information existed online. Every "top 10 crypto exchange" article I read was obviously written by someone who had never opened an order book, and every "best trading bot" post had an affiliate link in the first sentence.
So in late 2025 I started writing the guide I wished existed when I began: honest, data-driven, boring in all the right ways. This site is the result.
What I Actually Trade
Spot, perpetual futures, and some prediction markets (Polymarket, occasionally Kalshi). I use trading bots for systematic DCA and grid strategies, and I do manual discretionary trading on higher timeframes for swing positions.
I do not:
- Day-trade on 1-minute charts (I tried, I'm not good enough, I stopped)
- Use leverage above 5x (I learned my lesson in 2020)
- Chase memecoins with more than 2% of my portfolio
- Promise returns
I do:
- Keep most of my long-term holdings on hardware wallets
- Track every trade for tax purposes
- Publish real test results when I try new platforms
- Pay for my own tools (TradingView Premium, bot subscriptions, VPS)
How I Run This Site
1. Everything is tested with real money
Before I review an exchange or bot, I open a real account, fund it with real USD or USDT, execute real trades for at least 30 days, and withdraw real money at the end. Then I write about what actually happened.
If I ever review a platform I haven't personally used, I will say so explicitly at the top of the article. As of now, every review on this site passes this bar.
2. I never take paid placements
I don't do sponsored rankings. I don't sell "featured" slots. I don't accept free accounts in exchange for positive reviews.
Some exchanges have offered this. I've turned them all down. If I start accepting paid placements, I will lose the one thing that makes this site worth reading — and honestly, the affiliate commissions are already enough to keep the lights on.
3. I disclose affiliate income openly
I use affiliate links on this site. When you sign up for an exchange or tool through my link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That's how I pay for TradingView, bot subscriptions, the VPS that runs my tests, and hosting costs.
What this means in practice:
- I recommend platforms I actually use, whether or not they have affiliate programs
- If the best option for a use case does NOT have an affiliate program, I still recommend it
- Affiliate commissions **never** influence my rankings — if a paid partner is worse than a free alternative, the free alternative wins
- You can read the full [affiliate disclosure](/posts/affiliate-disclosure) for the legal-speak version
4. I update articles when things change
Crypto exchanges change their fees, add features, remove features, get hacked, get regulated, or sometimes go under. When any of that happens, I update the affected articles and note the change at the top.
"Last Updated: March 2026" at the top of every post is real — not a pretend-fresh stamp to fool the Google algorithm. If you see it, the article was actually reviewed and edited in that month.
5. I say "I don't know" when I don't
You will see "I don't know," "this is speculation," "I might be wrong about this," and "do your own research" throughout the site. That's not a SEO tactic — it's just honest.
If you're looking for someone who will tell you which coin will 100x next, that's not this site. I don't know, and anyone who claims they do is selling you something.
What You Can Expect From Me
Articles
I publish 3-5 new articles per week on crypto exchanges, trading bots, prediction markets, and strategy. Most are 2,500+ words. Some are heavy on numbers, some are heavy on opinion, all are based on real use.
Email newsletter
Once a week. Best deal of the week, the headline crypto story that actually matters, and whatever I'm testing in my own account. Sign up via the form on any page. Unsubscribe in one click.
YouTube + TikTok
Short-form explainers, fee comparisons, strategy breakdowns. Same editorial standards as the written content — no hype, no "secret indicators," no bullshit.
What you will NOT get
- Trading signals (I don't sell them, I don't share them, I don't believe in paid signal groups)
- Telegram pump-and-dumps (obviously)
- "Financial advice" (I'm not a financial advisor and neither is anyone writing a crypto newsletter)
- Referral links to shady exchanges I haven't tested
- Clickbait headlines that don't deliver on the substance inside
The Money Question
Readers occasionally ask how much the site makes, and whether affiliate commissions influence what I write. Fair questions. Here's the honest answer:
Affiliate revenue covers my tooling costs (TradingView, bots, VPS, hosting) and leaves a small margin. It is not my primary income. My primary income is my own trading plus a handful of other projects.
This matters because it means I don't need any single article to rank. I don't need to recommend a worse-but-higher-paying product. I don't need to hype up an exchange I think is mediocre because they pay me 50% commission. The site can be honest because it doesn't have to be dishonest to survive.
If that ever changes — if I start relying on affiliate revenue to pay rent — I will say so on this page first. Transparency with readers matters more to me than slightly bigger monthly commission checks.
The Technical Side
This site is built with:
- **Cloudflare Pages** for hosting (free tier, excellent CDN, 99.99% uptime)
- **Plain HTML + CSS** for the frontend (no React, no WordPress, no unnecessary JavaScript — pages load in under a second)
- **Markdown** for writing (every article is a `.md` file in version control)
- **Real structured data** (Article, Review, BreadcrumbList schema — nothing fake)
- **Click-tracking redirects** so I can measure which articles actually help readers (all tracking is first-party, no third-party pixels selling your data)
I don't use analytics that sell data, don't run ads (yet — if I ever do, it'll be disclosed here first), and don't put paywalls on anything.
Getting in Touch
- **Email:** [email protected] (I read every message, reply to most within 48 hours)
- **Twitter/X:** [@AiTradingRanked](https://twitter.com/AiTradingRanked)
- **TikTok:** [@aitradingranked](https://tiktok.com/@aitradingranked)
- **Pinterest:** [@Ghostys_Empire](https://www.pinterest.com/Ghostys_Empire)
Things I'm happy to hear about:
- Platforms you want me to review (I probably will, given enough requests)
- Mistakes you think I've made in an article (I update when I'm wrong)
- Questions for the FAQ (I rotate the most-asked questions into new posts)
- "This article helped me / saved me money" — genuinely makes my week
Things I'm not interested in:
- Guest post pitches (I write all the content myself)
- Paid placement offers (see above)
- Pump-and-dump pitches (instant block)
- "Secret strategy" sales pitches (instant delete)
One More Thing
The reason this site exists is that I got burned, expensive, and slowly, by trusting the wrong people online when I was starting out. I paid for a "signal group" that turned out to be a pump scheme. I followed a YouTuber who was secretly being paid to shill an exchange that later got SEC'd. I lost real money to real bad actors, and I remember exactly how that felt.
This site is the version of the internet I wish had existed for me in 2020. If it saves you even one bad decision — a fee you would have paid, an exchange you would have gotten stuck on, a bot subscription you would have wasted money on — then it did its job.
Thanks for reading this far.
— Ghosty
*This page is informational. Nothing on this site is financial advice. Crypto trading involves significant risk of loss. Never trade with money you cannot afford to lose. Always do your own research (DYOR).*