How to verify a trading robot is real: the MyFxBook checklist

Start by asking for a live, clickable MyFxBook URL that points to the independent domain myfxbook.com. Images, PDFs and edited videos can be faked in minutes; a public page that updates on its own and pulls data straight from the broker cannot.

If a seller only offers screenshots, an embedded widget on their own sales page, or calls the account "private" or "reserved for paying clients", treat that as a zero track record and stop there. A genuine offer wants you to look.

• The link must resolve to myfxbook.com, not a screenshot hosted on the seller's site
• A refusal to share a live link is your first and biggest red flag
• For reference, our accounts are openly listed on our public MyFxBook profile, so you can run every check on this page against them yourself

MyFxBook shows badges that mean different things. Read them precisely:

• Track Record Verified — the history was pulled directly from the broker, so the curve is authentic and not hand-typed. This is the minimum.
• Trading Privileges Verified — the account holder genuinely controls the account, holding the master password rather than just a read-only view. It proves the track really belongs to whoever claims it; whether the account is live or demo is shown separately by a Real/Demo tag.
• Authenticity Verified — an extra manual check, the highest tier.

A nice curve with no badge is just a drawing. But here is the crucial nuance most people miss: verification confirms the data is authentic, not that the strategy is safe. A 100% verified account can still be a martingale sitting on a huge floating loss. So badges are step one, not the finish line — keep going through the checks below.

Make sure the seller links one specific account, not "one of our many verified tracks", which is a classic way to quietly swap to whichever account looks best. See how we prove our results for what a clean setup looks like.

This is the single most important check, and the one scammers rely on you skipping.

• Balance is the sum of closed trades only. It moves only when a trade is closed.
• Equity is Balance plus the floating profit or loss of every open position. It updates continuously and is the real value of the account.

A rising balance with equity sitting well below it means losing positions are being held open in the hope they recover — "hold and hope". The smooth balance curve hides the damage. A real published example showed a balance of 45,081 against an equity of 25,965: the equity was only about 57% of the balance — a hidden floating loss of roughly 19,000, completely invisible on the profit curve.

On MyFxBook, find the equity figure next to the balance and compare them. If you are only ever shown the balance and never the equity, assume there is a hidden floating loss until proven otherwise. Showing balance only, never equity, is a red flag by default.

There are two ways a history gets dressed up, and both are easy to expose.

First, cherry-picked dates. In MetaTrader and on any statement, the History tab lets you choose the period shown. A trend-following robot shines if you only display a trending year; sellers quietly omit hard periods like 2022. Ask directly: "what happened on the dates you are not showing?" Insist on a continuous record that includes stress periods.

Second, hidden open trades. The live linked account should show its currently open positions and their floating P/L. There is no legitimate reason to hide open trades on a public statement — hiding them almost always conceals a large floating drawdown. A grid robot on gold typically shows six to twelve buy positions open at once at different levels.

A smooth balance curve plus hidden open trades is a combination to reject by default. Learn more in how to read a verified account.

Real trading loses sometimes. A monthly breakdown that is green every single month, or a perfectly straight equity line, is a warning sign rather than a selling point: a smooth curve is the signature of a grid or martingale holding losers open, not proof of skill. Industry estimates suggest that a large majority of marketplace robots embed martingale or grid logic.

When you read the numbers, separate the two drawdowns MyFxBook reports:

• Balance drawdown only counts closed trades and dramatically understates the real risk.
• Equity drawdown includes floating losses — this is the one that tells you how close the account came to a wipeout.

Also cross-check the win rate against the average win and average loss. A 90% win rate where the average loss is four times the average win is a negative-expectancy system waiting to blow up. Ask the seller to publish the bad months, not just the good ones.

On MyFxBook every account is tagged Real or Demo. A demo uses fake money and ideal conditions: no real slippage, no requotes, no spread widening, no swaps, no psychological pressure. The same strategy typically looks 20–40% better on demo than live, which is why a demo presented as live is a classic trick.

That said, do not dismiss demos outright. A demo tests the platform and execution mechanics, not profitability — but a long, honest, realistic demo (several months, 100+ trades, on a broker whose spreads match the target) still carries real information. It lets you confirm the robot's behaviour — number of trades, duration, drawdown — matches the claims before any money is at stake.

The hierarchy is simple: a verified live record is the best proof; a long realistic demo is a useful indicator; a short demo or a cent account dressed up to inflate percentages proves almost nothing. When in doubt, a micro-live account at 0.01 lots is the cheapest way to introduce real slippage into the test.

Time exposes weak strategies. A few profitable weeks tell you nothing; a record spanning many months through different market conditions tells you far more. Aim for at least 12 months of live trading and 200+ closed trades — anything shorter has huge error bars on its win rate and profit factor. Check the "Updated" timestamp too: data that is weeks stale is worthless.

Then look at the broker behind the account. Is it a regulated, recognised broker you can confirm on a regulator's site (FCA, ASIC, CySEC, CFTC/NFA), or an obscure name? A long record on a credible, regulated broker is far harder to fake than a fresh account on an unknown one.

MyFxBook is the most common tool, but it is not the only valid one. FX Blue (an independent provider, integrated with many brokers including OANDA), FX Stat and MyFXReturn work on the same read-only investor-password principle and count as genuine third-party verification. Treat MQL5 Signals with more nuance: it does link signals to real broker accounts (so the trades are genuinely monitored), but its rankings push popularity and sales rather than the safety of the underlying strategy, so a high rank is not evidence the approach is sound. The rule across all of them: a link that resolves to the independent platform's own domain counts; a screenshot hosted by the seller does not.

Finally, make sure the whole story is internally consistent. The gains advertised in a pitch should match the verified curve, the drawdown should match the risk being described, and the lot sizes should make sense for the stated account size. Mismatches usually mean someone is dressing up the numbers.

Watch for the classic scam signals and walk away if you see them:

• Promises of guaranteed returns, "no-loss" or fixed monthly percentages
• Pressure to deposit quickly or a forced "partner" broker link
• Support only on Telegram or WhatsApp, with no named, identifiable team
• A copy-trading offer that is really a MAM/PAMM with lock-up periods, where you cannot stop trading or withdraw at will

We cover each of these in detail in our copy-trading scam red flags guide. When in doubt, get in touch and ask questions before anything else — a serious provider will welcome them.