Why Copy-Trading on Polymarket Loses Money Despite Mimicking Winning Wallets

Copy-trading on Polymarket — where bots automatically replicate trades made by profitable wallets — appears straightforward but contains three structural flaws that erode any potential gains. Execution delays mean copy-traders buy at higher prices than the original trader, while market impact from large traders further widens that gap. Perhaps most critically, fixed-size copying replicates losses equally but fails to reproduce the asymmetric position sizing that makes a winning strategy profitable in the first place. Real-world testing showed a net loss of $10 in a single day, not due to technical failure, but because the core premise was flawed. Experts note that what makes a trader consistently profitable — timing, conviction, and risk management — is invisible in a public activity feed and cannot be transferred through action-mirroring alone.