I've been fascinated by the world of investing for a while now, and it's crazy to think that just about everyone has a brokerage or individual investment account. Thanks to Tinkoff's super-low interest rates on deposits, it's become more accessible than ever. Three years ago, the picture was a lot different. Domestic brokers seemed like a luxury only for the financial elite, and decent mobile apps were hard to come by. But people were starting to take an interest in investing, and I couldn't ignore the growing wave. My friend's influence didn't hurt, either – he was into it thanks to his Israeli friend who worked at eToro. He asked her three times if it was safe to withdraw money, and then he started investing big. But this isn't about him; it's about me.

So, I downloaded the eToro app, which is seriously cute and user-friendly. Since it was three years ago, things might have changed, but after a quick setup and authentication, you get access to your virtual portfolio. It's a great feature, similar to what VTB offers. The idea is that you're given virtual money – $100,000 – and you can do what you want with it, watching the dynamics.

I did just that for the first couple of weeks. Then, I decided to take the plunge and complete the full authentication process. It's not as easy as it seems. You need to fill out a pretty extensive questionnaire about your experience and investment goals, and the most important part is attaching scans of two documents: one proving your identity and the other proving your address.

That's when eToro's uniqueness starts to shine through. It's an international platform, not a traditional broker, so during authentication, you're assigned a manager who speaks your language. Guess who mine was? My friend's friend's friend – it's a small world, right? This manager won't give you investment advice, but they'll answer technical questions, like how to attach documents or how long they'll take to verify. Communication with the manager happens via email, which you registered with when you signed up.

This is what my news feed looks like. I successfully copied this guy's styleThe authentication process took me a few days, but definitely not more than a week.

Secondly. And this is super important. On eToro, you don't buy a specific stock. This is weird, scary, and if you think about it, it's kinda like a scam. Because you're not actually buying the stock, you're giving your money to eToro – some online platform with a head office who-knows-where (actually, it's Cyprus) – and they're buying it on your behalf. Sounds worse than MMM, right?
But there's actually a plus to this. And it's a huge one. You don't have to buy the whole stock, you can buy a tiny piece of a super expensive stock. Right now, the minimum amount to buy a stock is $50. When I started, it was $25!
My rule for investing in the stock market is to only put in what I'm not afraid to lose. So, the amounts I'm trading with are super small, even now. But good stocks are usually expensive. For example, one Amazon stock costs around $3,220 today. I couldn't afford to invest $25,000 in one stock, even if Amazon is a great company. But $50? That's a different story.

This is what I was invested in. And its price on 02.10
So, I've been doing this for three years now. I've invested in stocks from American companies.
And, of course, I also got caught up in cryptocurrency. That was a disaster. At first, it was great, but then it dropped by 98% from its original price. Again, one thing is buying one Bitcoin for $10,000 and losing $8,000 in a month, and another thing is buying it for $25 and getting a lifetime of financial experience.Thirdly: eToro positions itself as a social trading platform. It's like a social network where everyone can share their opinions and make predictions. It's similar to Tinkoff Investments' 'Pulse'. I won't say much about its usefulness, but you can find interesting people who write about investing there. Most of the people on eToro are English-speaking, but the app has a built-in translator if you need it, and there's a small number of Russian-speaking investors.
The fourth cool thing is the ability to copy someone. In short, here's what it's all about. You choose someone whose rating and portfolio meet eToro's requirements, and then you start copying them. The minimum amount to copy someone is now $200, when I started it was $100. For $200, you're copying their entire portfolio at the time you opened the copy. It's super convenient.
I chose 3-4 interesting investors, copied their portfolios on a virtual account, watched what happened over the course of a month, and then chose one person to follow.

The investors I was watching

Now that I've covered all the features I wanted to mention, I think it's time to talk about the elephant in the room: the money. I invested a bit over 12,000 rubles, and I'm not even mad about it. As I mentioned earlier, I lost a pretty penny on cryptocurrency, but in the end, I managed to withdraw 18,500 rubles. That's around 17% annual returns. I withdrew the money easily within four days, and it was transferred to the card I specified.

So, here are my takeaways and advice:

1. If you've got some spare cash lying around, it's worth giving it a shot.

2. There's always some level of risk involved with any investment, so don't go all in.

3. Take your time, think things through, and remember that ultimately, the responsibility is yours.

Why I'm out: This was initially a short-term experiment, but I've since found some alternative options and decided to open an individual investment account.