A Solana trading bot like Banana Gun runs inside Telegram, and your first copy trade takes seven steps: create a wallet, fund it with at least 0.1 SOL, open /copytrade, paste a wallet address, set Buy Fixed, set a Spending Limit, and toggle Active.
A Fomo app trader, frank, booked +$258,719 in 30 days (GMGN realized PnL, 27 Oct 2026). A wallet with a record like that is what you paste into /copytrade, and the setup below takes you from an empty Telegram chat to a first copy trade.
The Telegram trading bot lists 1.5M+ lifetime users (bananagun.io, read 3 Nov 2026).
Banana Gun’s own guide on how to trade Solana on Telegram covers the wider menu; this page stays on copy trading.
What does a Solana trading bot need from you before the first trade?
Three things: a wallet the bot controls, SOL inside it, and a target wallet address to copy. Everything else is a setting you can change later, so the first pass does not need to be perfect. If the idea itself is new, start with what copy trading is and how it works.
For SOL, plan on at least 0.1 SOL, about $9 at $91.56 per SOL (CoinGecko, 2 Nov 2026 20:55 UTC). Keep 0.05 SOL, about $4.60, untouched for fees. Below that the bot answers “Insufficient Funds” and the buy does not go through.
Step by step: wallet, funding, first copy trade
- Open the bot in Telegram and go to “Wallet Setup”.
- Tap “Create Wallet”, name it, and save the private key before you close the screen, because it is shown once and Banana Gun cannot show it again.
- Type /wallets to see the public key, then send at least 0.1 SOL to it from Phantom or an exchange.
- Open “Copy Trading” in the start menu, or type /copytrade, and tap “New Copy Trade”.
- Paste the target wallet address, add a description you will recognise, and select your wallet.
- Set Buy Fixed (the same amount every time), Spending Limit (the total you are fine losing on that wallet) and Max Market Cap (a token above it does not copy).
- Toggle “Inactive” to “Active”, then check /positions.
Already hold a Phantom or Solflare wallet? “Import Wallet” takes its private key instead of “Create Wallet”, and the rest of the steps stay the same.
Buy Only Once, an Advanced Setting, blocks a token for 7 days after your first buy of it. Fees are 1% per trade on Solana. The “Active” time setting decides how long the copy trade keeps running, so pick a window you will remember.
Why does a buy fail, and which setting fixes it?
The Banana Gun Solana docs list three fixes. Raise the buy gas from 0.001 to 0.005 or higher, and raise the MEV tip over the same range.
For volatile tokens, raise slippage from 5% to 10-30%. Change one setting at a time, so you know which one did the work.
A trade above your Spending Limit fails by design, so a failed buy after a few good ones can simply mean the cap is used up. Raise it only if you still want that exposure, and only by an amount you are fine losing.
When a copy trade never fires, check the Max Market Cap first. The docs example is a $500K ceiling, and a buy at $600K does not copy; the filter is doing its job.
Checking the position and the copied wallet’s record
/positions shows what you hold. Copied buys land after the wallet’s own buy, so your entry is often higher than theirs, and that gap is the cost of copying. We break that cost down in is copy trading profitable.
Check a 30-day record on a wallet scanner before you paste anything; our copy trading wallet screening guide lists what to look at. The 30-day number for frank went from +$863,301 (8 Oct 2026) to +$447,431 (20 Oct) to +$258,719 (27 Oct), all GMGN snapshots. The figure stayed positive while it fell.
On GMGN, point farm capital posted -$1,163,571 over 30 days (20 Oct 2026) and -$271,630 on 27 Oct. Copy a wallet like that without looking and the Spending Limit is what caps your loss to it.
Three mistakes that end a first week
Forgetting to save the private key is the first. Banana Gun cannot show it again, so write it down before you fund anything.
The second is funding below 0.05 SOL and wondering why every buy fails. The third is copying a wallet you never checked. The docs warn that some target wallets buy pump-and-dumps and use copy traders as exit liquidity.
Run the seven steps once in the Telegram trading bot with a small Spending Limit, and watch one full copy trade from the buy to the position in /positions.
Stop losing money to slow fills.
Seven steps stand between an empty Telegram chat and your first copy trade on Banana Gun: a wallet, 0.1 SOL, a wallet address you checked, Buy Fixed and a Spending Limit you are comfortable with.
Keep the Spending Limit small enough that one bad wallet costs you a lesson and not your run. Then, when the wallet you picked has a strong month, your copy trade is already running.
