Crypto Investing: It’s All Monkey Business Anyway
Summary: In this post, we explore our six-month journey building tools for crypto investors — from serious AI-driven technical analysis with TradingChartAnalyst.com to launching MonkeyPick.fun, a coin roulette game that asks the sarcastic but oddly serious question: “Can a monkey beat Wall Street analysts?” Along the way, we discovered that crypto investing might really just be… monkey business.
The Setup: Solving Real Problems in Crypto Trading
Six months ago, our small team set out with what we thought was a noble mission: help retail investors stand a chance in markets that often feel rigged against them. We had developed our own tools to analyze charts and after launching a beta version version realized that other crypto investors were facing the same challenges in technical analysis.
We launched TradingChartAnalyst.com, an AI tool where anyone could upload a trading chart and instantly get advanced analysis — indicators like RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, volume signals, sentiment overlays. The kind of serious stuff that would make you sound smart at a dinner party, or at least in a Telegram group full of degens.
The idea was simple: give everyday investors the tools hedge funds take for granted, without the jargon or Bloomberg Terminal subscription.
And to our surprise… it worked. We grew from 0 to almost 4,500 monthly users. All organic. No paid ads. Just Medium posts and Reddit threads, some late-night forum posts, and more bug fixes than bananas in a Costco shipment.
But then came the question from the Research Team that no one wanted to ask out loud:
👉 What if randomness actually does better than all this technical analysis?
From “Advanced Analysis” to Monkey Roulette
That thought didn’t leave us.
We’d spent months fine-tuning algorithms, improving chart recognition, layering sentiment data, debating the predictive power of stochastic RSI.
Yet, in the back of our minds, we kept remembering an uncomfortable truth: many studies show that monkeys throwing darts at a stock page can outperform professional fund managers.
So naturally, we asked ourselves:
What if we built a monkey crypto coin picking tool?
And thus, MonkeyPick.fun was born — a crypto coin roulette game where a cartoon monkey spins a wheel of coins, hands you a random portfolio, and then lets you track ROI portfolio with real-time cryptocurrency values.
It’s silly. It’s sarcastic. It’s half parody, half experiment.
But it also asks a question most traders secretly avoid:
If randomness can perform as well (or better) than months of technical analysis… what are we really doing?
Vibe Coding: Ten Days in the Banana Factory
Let me be honest: the past six months had been less “agile sprint planning” and more “vibe coding” at 2 AM while running on coffee and banana bread.” Coding the Monkey Roulette app was supposed to be much simpler.
We built a wheel spinner that originally showed only a quarter of the wheel (oops).
We fought CSS until the monkey mascot finally looked less like a taxidermy project and more like, well, a monkey.
We learned that people will forgive broken buttons… if the monkey is funny enough.
We debated features: should we let users build custom wheels (Blue Chips only, Meme Coins only, AI Coins only)? Should the monkey taunt you when your portfolio tanks?
The whole thing has been equal parts fintech startup and circus act. And maybe that’s exactly what crypto investing is. We thought that users should be able able to compare their portfolios(bags of coins!!) so we connected to a cryptocurrency real-time quote platform to get Banana portfolio value.
The Premise: Can a Monkey Beat Wall Street Analysts?
This is the question at the heart of MonkeyPick.fun.
Wall Street analysts build 30-page slide decks. They model discounted cash flows. They write notes full of jargon that sounds impressive but often translates to “we don’t know.”
Our monkey? He just spins. Picks a few random coins. Drops them in a Banana Portfolio.
And here’s the funny (or tragic) part: sometimes… the monkey wins.
This isn’t just a meme — there’s history here. Decades ago, experiments showed that monkeys throwing darts at the stock page could outperform professional fund managers. Even Warren Buffett bet that a simple index fund would beat hedge funds over 10 years (he was right).
So our sarcastic app asks: If randomness works, what’s the point of all the analysis?
Maybe the real “alpha” is just admitting the market is chaos.
Monkey Business vs Technical Analysis
Let’s compare the two worlds we’ve built:
TradingChartAnalyst.com (Serious TA):
- Upload a chart → get RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands.
- Sentiment analysis layered on top.
- Designed to empower DIY traders.
- Serious design, serious analytics.
MonkeyPick.fun (Monkey Roulette):
- Spin a wheel → get random coins.
- Portfolio called “Banana Portfolio.”
- Compete on leaderboards.
- Trophies for beating other monkeys.
- Tagline: It’s all monkey business anyway.
In one, you spend hours reading signals. In the other, you just click a button and laugh when DOGE ends up outperforming ETH.
And weirdly, both paths may lead to similar ROI. That’s the sarcastic truth we wanted to spotlight.
Why Build This?
Aside from the humor and memes, there’s a serious reason:
- Experimentation: Testing randomness vs analysis generates real data. The more user and players we have the more data to compare and study.(we actually do real market analysis at TradingchartAnalyst.com)
- Community: It sparks conversations. Few things are more shareable than “my monkey beat your portfolio.” Crypto is sometimes too serious. Let’s have fun.
- Engagement: Gamification pulls in users who would never open a TA tool. We have seen it in beta test where users spin the monkey wheel for hours.
- Traffic funnel: MonkeyPick is free, fun, and viral. It drives curious users to TradingChartAnalyst, where we offer the “serious” tools.
- Community: It sparks conversations. Few things are more shareable than “my monkey beat your portfolio.”
What We’ve Learned So Far
- Fun beats fear. Trading apps often thrive on fear (FOMO, red candles, doomsday predictions). MonkeyPick flips that: it’s humor, parody, fun first.
- Randomness resonates. People like admitting markets are unpredictable, even if they don’t trade that way.
- Reddit is gold. Early users came from Reddit threads. Crypto Twitter added fuel. Memes did the rest.
- Building fast matters. We didn’t over-engineer. We vibe-coded, broke things, fixed them, and shipped.
Where Next?
The roadmap for MonkeyPick is playful but ambitious:
- Custom Wheels (Meme Coins, Blue Chips, AI Coins).
- Leaderboards: Track the best-performing monkeys globally. Create contest.
- Monkey vs Pro Challenges: Compare Banana Portfolio ROI with fund managers or influencers.
- MonkeyCoins/Badge Rewards: maybe actual coins that you earn for participating, building your portfolio. Purely for fun.
The bigger question we’re exploring is whether randomness, over time, does in fact compete with carefully engineered TA strategies. If so… maybe the joke’s on all of us.
Final Thoughts: Embracing the Monkey Business
Crypto investing is hard. Indicators lag. News cycles shift faster than TikTok trends. Meme coins pump 300% while serious projects grind sideways.
After six months building both a serious fintech tool and a sarcastic roulette monkey, here’s what we’ve come to believe:
👉 Crypto investing is monkey business. Always has been. Always will be.
And maybe that’s okay.
Because whether you’re drawing RSI lines at 3 AM or spinning a monkey wheel at lunch, we’re all just trying to make sense of chaos. Sometimes it’s better to laugh at it.
So if you want to test your luck, or prove that your monkey can beat ours, check out MonkeyPick.fun.
After all… Wall Street had its turn. Now it’s the monkey’s. 🐒🍌
I write about fintech and AI with a contrarian approach to analyzing trends. I would love to hear what you think. Please Clap, Follow or Comment.
We recently launched MonkeyPick.fun and TradingChartAnalyst . Two sides of the same coin(no pun intended!). An AI-driven unique tool for crypto traders to get advanced technical analysis and Market Signals by simply uploading a trading chart of any coin or stock. A Coin Pick roulette game based on a Monkey spinning a cryptocurrency roulette.
Remember, this is all for fun. The Monkey doesn’t do financial advice neither do we. This is not gambling. Just pure fun testing an idea. But hey, can a Monkey beat Wall Street? There’s only one way to find out.
Try TradingChartAnalyst. Get a lifetime Premium access to our tool and help us improve our application. SignUp or contact me at jl@idea-lab.ai. or DM us on Instagram @Trading_chart_analyst