Social apps and wallet swaps
How social trading apps like FOMO work, why small trades cost more there, the catch with following people, and when a wallet swap is enough.
A social trading app looks like a social network that can trade. You get a feed of what other traders bought and sold, profiles that show their profit and loss, a leaderboard, and alerts when someone you follow buys. When you see a coin you like, you tap it and tap buy.
FOMO
FOMO is the best known of these apps. It runs on iPhone, Android and the web, and trades on Solana, Base, BNB Chain, Monad, Ethereum, Robinhood Chain and Arc. You sign up without a seed phrase, you can fund it with Apple Pay, and on Solana FOMO pays the network fees for you. FOMO says you hold your funds in a self-custody wallet. With no seed phrase, your access depends on the account you sign in with, so turn on two-factor sign-in there. FOMO lets you export the wallet's private key in its settings. If you do, keep it offline and never type it into a site.
FOMO's fee on Solana depends on the size of the trade. On its lowest-fee route it is a flat 0.10 USDC under 5 USDC, 2% from 5 to 47.50 USDC, a flat 0.95 USDC from 47.50 to 190 USDC, and 0.50% from 190 USDC up. Other routes charge 0.50% with a 0.95 USDC minimum. Signing up with a referral code takes 10% off. Trenchpilot has a referral link with FOMO, and we may earn a reward if you sign up through it.
FOMO and other apps compared, with our referral link| Trade size | FOMO fee | As a percent |
|---|---|---|
| $4 | $0.10 flat | 2.5% |
| $20 | 2%, so $0.40 | 2% |
| $100 | $0.95 flat | 0.95% |
| $500 | 0.50%, so $2.50 | 0.5% |
The lesson in that table goes beyond FOMO. Fees with a minimum hit small trades hardest. A $20 trade pays 2% to get in and about the same to get out, so the coin has to rise about 4% just to cover FOMO's fee. The coin's own pool fee comes on top.
The catch with following people
Following good traders feels like a shortcut. The problem is timing. They bought before anyone saw it, and you buy after. When hundreds of followers buy at once, they push the price up, and the trader you copied can sell into your buying.
Late to the party
A trader you follow buys a coin at a $50,000 market cap. The app tells their followers, and many of them buy.
- Step 1: By the time your buy lands, the followers have pushed the coin to $90,000.
- Step 2: The first trader sells. The price slides back to $50,000.
- Step 3: They are about where they started, give or take fees. You are down about 44%, because you paid $90,000 for something now worth $50,000.
- Step 4: This happens every day with no scam involved. Arriving late is simply expensive.
Wallet and launchpad apps
Phantom, Solflare and Backpack all let you swap tokens inside the wallet. That is the simplest way to buy a coin you have already researched. Phantom flags transactions it thinks are malicious, and Backpack said in March 2026 that it charges no fee of its own on swaps. A wallet swap shows you very little about a coin, though, and it is slower to use than a terminal's one-click buttons.
The pump.fun app and website let you trade coins right where they launch, with livestreams and a leaderboard. Since 17 October 2026, every trade placed in the pump.fun app or website carries a 0.45% platform fee, or 0.40% with a referral code. That comes on top of the coin's own trading fee, which you pay whatever app you use.
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This guide is for learning. It is not financial advice. Most memecoins go to zero and most people who trade them lose money. Only ever trade what you can afford to lose.