Most people who try crypto trading lose money in their first few months, and the tuition gets paid on a live exchange. Staxo takes a different route. It hands you virtual dollars, live market prices and a course library, and lets you make the beginner mistakes where they cost nothing. We spent time with both the free and the Pro tier, on the phone and in the browser, to see whether it deserves a place next to the usual demo accounts.
What Staxo is
Staxo is a crypto trading simulator that runs as a native app on iOS and Android and as a web app at staxo.app. There is no wallet, no deposit and no identity check: you create an account and you are looking at the market within a minute. A new account collects $500 in virtual cash through its first daily bonus, and the bonus repeats every 24 hours ($500 on Free, $1,000 on Pro), so a blown account is never the end of the road. Prices come from CoinGecko and refresh roughly once a minute across the top 100 coins by market cap. The interface is dark, purple accented and built around five tabs: Home, Market, a leaderboard, Portfolio and Learn.
Home: wallet value, daily bonus, streak and challenges Portfolio: live holdings value and all-time trading P&L
How trading works
Trading is kept deliberately simple. You buy and sell at the live market price, swap one coin for another, and every trade lands in a history you can revisit. There are no limit or stop orders and no simulated fees, which is the first thing an intermediate trader will miss. Everyone is also capped at 10 trades a day. That reads like a limitation, but it is really a nudge against the overtrading habit that paper accounts tend to breed.
Pro unlocks long and short positions with 1x, 2x or 5x leverage, and this part is done properly. Profit and loss is margin times leverage times price move, each position shows its liquidation price, and a server job checks open positions every five minutes and closes them when the price crosses that line. It is the safest place we know of to find out what 5x actually feels like on a red day.
Learning built into the app
The Learn tab is what separates Staxo from an exchange demo account. It holds 42 courses with 130 lessons and 168 quiz questions, arranged from Beginner to Pro. The six beginner courses are free; the other 36 need Pro. Lessons are short, phone-sized and end in a quiz, and finishing them earns XP that carries you through eight levels, each with a cash reward paid into the virtual wallet. Daily challenges, streaks with cash milestones at 7, 30 and 90 days, and 39 badges keep the loop turning. It borrows from language apps, and it works: the app gives you a reason to open it on a day when the market is boring, which is exactly when a beginner should be reading rather than trading.
Leaderboards and leagues
The global leaderboard ranks users by monthly return in percent rather than by balance, and it subtracts the daily bonus, so claiming free cash does not move you up. Four tiers by level (bronze to diamond) reset each month with XP prizes for the top three. You can also open a private league and invite friends, which is the closest thing the app has to a classroom mode and a good fit for a group learning together.
Free vs Pro
The free tier covers the daily bonus, trading on 10 major coins (all 100 are visible), the RSI indicator, six courses, the last 10 transactions, and full access to leaderboards and leagues. Pro costs $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year and adds all 100 coins, long and short positions, MACD and Bollinger Bands, candlestick charts, the remaining 36 courses, full transaction history, a portfolio health score, the $1,000 daily bonus and doubled level-up rewards. Neither tier shows ads, and referring three friends who go on to trade earns 14 days of Pro.
How Staxo compares
| Type | Staxo | TradingView Paper Trading | Binance Demo Trading | eToro Virtual Portfolio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free; Pro $8.99/mo or $59.99/yr | Free on every plan | Free | Free |
| Account needed | Email or Google/Apple sign-in, no KYC | Free TradingView account | Binance account, region-gated | eToro account, KYC when going live |
| Assets | Top 100 crypto (10 on Free) | Stocks, ETFs, forex, crypto, futures | Crypto spot and futures | Stocks, ETFs, crypto, forex, commodities |
| Virtual balance | $500 start, $500 to $1,000 daily bonus | $100,000, resettable | $5,000 spot, $16,800 futures | $100,000, reset via support ticket |
| Order types | Market only | Market, limit, stop, bracket | Market, limit, stop | Market, limit, stop, trailing |
| Leverage and shorts | 1x, 2x, 5x, long and short (Pro) | Yes, configurable | Futures up to 125x | CFD leverage |
| Built-in courses | 42 courses, 130 lessons, quizzes | None for regular users | Separate Binance Academy | eToro Academy, partly tier-gated |
| Leaderboard | Monthly, plus private leagues | No | No | No |
| Mobile app | iOS, Android, web | iOS, Android, desktop | In the Binance app | iOS, Android |
| Best for | Complete beginners in crypto | Chart-first, multi market traders | People already committed to Binance | Broker-curious, multi asset beginners |
The pattern is clear. The three alternatives are real trading platforms with a practice mode attached, so they win on order types and asset breadth. Staxo is a learning product with a simulator attached, so it wins on the curriculum, on the absence of any nudge to deposit, and on being usable without opening a brokerage or exchange account.
What we liked
- No deposit, no KYC, trading within a minute
- Real prices and real leverage maths, with liquidations
- 42 courses with quizzes, tied to XP and rewards
- Leaderboard ranks by return, not by balance
- No ads on either tier
What we would change
- Market orders only, no limit or stop-loss practice
- No simulated trading fees or slippage
- Free tier trades only 10 coins
- No portfolio value chart over time yet
- Crypto only, no stocks or forex
Verdict. Staxo is for the person who has never placed a trade and does not want the first one to cost money, and for the stock or ETF investor who wants to understand crypto’s 24/7 volatility before touching it. It is not for the active trader who needs limit orders, fee simulation or a desktop charting workstation; TradingView or an exchange demo serve that person better. Judged as a learning tool, it does the job well: live prices, honest leverage maths and a curriculum that most practice accounts leave out. Start on the free tier, finish the six beginner courses, and only then decide whether Pro is worth $59.99 a year to you.
Staxo is available on the App Store, Google Play and at staxo.app. Version reviewed: 1.2.9. Prices and features verified in August 2026.
