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BeginnerLesson 3 of 6 · 4 min read

Telegram bots: trading by chat

How Telegram trading bots work, the main ones in 2026, what they charge, and how people lose money to fake bots.

On this page
  1. The main bots in October 2026
  2. Why people like them
  3. What can go wrong
  4. MEV protection in one minute
  5. Quiz

A Telegram bot is a trading app that lives inside a chat. You open it in Telegram, it makes a Solana wallet for you, and you send SOL to that wallet. To buy a coin you paste its contract address into the chat. The bot replies with a card showing the price, market cap and liquidity, and a row of buttons: buy 0.1, 0.5 or 1 SOL, or a custom amount.

Selling works the same way. You open your position and tap sell 25%, 50% or 100%. Most bots also do limit orders, automatic take-profit and stop-loss, and copy trading, where the bot buys whenever a wallet you chose buys.

The main bots in October 2026

  • Trojan. One of the biggest Solana bots. It charges 1% per trade, only on trades that go through, and every user gets 20% of that back as cashback. You can export your wallet's private key from its settings. Trojan has also run a web terminal since January 2026.
  • BONKbot. One of the first Solana Telegram bots. It charges 1% on each successful swap. MEV protection is on by default. Its team also runs Telemetry, a web terminal.
  • Maestro. A long-running bot that works on many chains. It charges 1% on buys and sells, and on Solana it takes the fee inside the same transaction. An optional Premium plan, $200 a month in October 2026, adds features.
  • Bloom. A Telegram bot with a Chrome extension. It charges 1% on each buy and sell, or 0.9% if you joined through a referral.
  • GMGN bots. GMGN's Telegram bots for Solana, with buying, limit orders, automatic sells and copy trading tied to its smart money data.
  • Banana Gun. A multi-chain bot with a web app called Banana Pro. We could not find its trading fee in its own docs on 30 October 2026, so read it in the bot before you trade. Banana Pro's own FAQ says it cannot show a wallet's private key again later, so save the key when you create the wallet.
Example

What 1% with 20% cashback means

You buy 1 SOL of a coin through Trojan.

  1. Step 1: The fee is 1% of 1 SOL: 0.01 SOL.
  2. Step 2: 20% of that comes back to you as cashback: 0.002 SOL.
  3. Step 3: Your net fee is 0.008 SOL, or 0.8%. Network fees, any priority fee and the pool's own fee come on top.

Why people like them

Bots are quick on a phone, they work anywhere Telegram works, and they are simple. There is no wall of charts to learn. Alerts arrive in the same app as your group chats, so you can act on a call in seconds.

What can go wrong

A Telegram bot signs your trades on its own systems, which is what makes it fast. Some bots call their wallets self-custodial because you can export the key, and that is worth having. It still means two things. If the bot's company is hacked or shuts down, your balance is at risk. And if someone takes over your Telegram account, they can open the bot and try to trade or withdraw.

The biggest danger is a fake bot. Scammers make bots with almost the same name and spread them in groups and DMs. GMGN's docs warn of one trick in particular: a capital I used in place of a lowercase l, which look the same in many fonts.

A shadowy figure hides behind a giant phone full of chat bubbles and dangles a gold coin on a fishing hook from the newest message; the explorer steps back with a hand raised.
Fake bots and fake support accounts reach you through chats and DMs.
Example

Spot the fake

These bot names are made up to show the trick.

  1. Step 1: You search Telegram for a bot called @SolFastBot and get two results: @SolFastBot and @SoIFastBot.
  2. Step 2: The second one has a capital I where the l should be. In Telegram's font they look almost the same.
  3. Step 3: The fake works like the real bot until you deposit. Then it drains the wallet, or asks you to import your main wallet's key.
  4. Step 4: The fix: open a bot only from the link on the project's official website or docs, and check the name letter by letter.

MEV protection in one minute

While your buy waits to be processed, someone else's bot may try to buy just before you and sell just after you, keeping the difference. That is a sandwich attack. Most Telegram bots offer MEV protection, which sends your trade by a private route so it is much harder to sandwich. It can cost a little more and land a little slower.

Read what your bot's setting really does. BONKbot, for example, has a Turbo mode that protects you only when the private route is also the fastest, and a Secure mode that always protects you but can be slower.

A sandwich attackThree trades in the same block, shown as price moves. One: a bot sees your buy coming and buys just before you, pushing the price up. Two: your buy fills at that higher price and pushes it up further. Three: the bot sells straight after you at the top. The bot keeps the difference and you paid more than the price you saw.All three land in the same blockPrice higherPrice you sawyou starthigherbot keepsthe gap1. Bot buysjust before you2. You buyat a worse price3. Bot sellsright after you
A sandwich attack: a bot buys just before you, your buy lifts the price, and the bot sells right after you.
How sandwich attacks work

Check what you learned

0 of 5 answered

  1. Question 1How do you usually buy a coin in a Telegram bot?
  2. Question 2TrickyTwo bots come up in search: @SolFastBot and @SoIFastBot. Which one is safe?
  3. Question 3What does MEV protection try to stop?
  4. Question 4Trojan charges 1% and gives 20% of it back as cashback. On a 1 SOL buy, what is the net fee?
  5. Question 5TrickySomeone takes over your Telegram account, but you never shared your bot wallet's key. Is your bot balance safe?

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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.