Getting started: your first steps on the platform

Step 1: Register your account

Complete the registration form with your first name, surname, email address and telephone number. Use details that are genuinely yours and match your identity document, because verification compares them. Choose a password you have not used anywhere else: a passphrase of four unrelated words is both stronger and easier to remember than the usual P@ssw0rd pattern.

Immediately after registering, switch on two-step verification in the security section. It takes ninety seconds with any authenticator app and it is the single most effective protection on your account. While you are there, confirm that the email on file is one you actually check, because security alerts and transaction confirmations go to it. Within 24 hours your personal manager will call you to arrange activation; that call is also where you can ask anything this guide does not cover.

Step 2: Connect the platform to your exchange account

Automated execution runs through a connection to the exchange accounts the platform works with. The connection is made with an API key, a long credential generated on the exchange's side that you paste into AfriLegacy AI once. Your manager will walk you through generating the key on whichever exchange you use and pasting it into the platform.

Two settings matter on that key. Permissions: enable read (so the platform can see balances and prices) and trade (so strategies can execute), and leave withdrawal permanently off. The platform never needs withdrawal rights, and a request from anyone to enable them is a fraud signal. Restrictions, where the exchange offers them: allow the key to work only from the platform's identified addresses if that option exists. Store the key nowhere except the exchange and the platform; it functions like a password.

Step 3: Configure analysis and monitoring

Next, tell the analysis layer what to watch. You choose the trading pairs or instruments to follow, for example USD/ZAR and gold alongside the major crypto assets, and the conditions that matter to you: trend direction, volatility bands, volume spikes. You do not need to build these from scratch; the platform ships with prepared configurations that experienced traders use as starting points.

Set up notifications so the market comes to you instead of you chasing it. Email or push alerts can tell you when a strategy enters or exits a position, when a price crosses a level you chose, and when volatility pauses trading under the brake rule. A useful habit for the first month: turn the alerts on fully, read them, and then turn down the ones you find you ignore. Monitoring is only useful if you look at it.

One warning worth stating early: notifications are information, not instructions. An alert that a strategy entered a position is a fact to know, not a signal for you to rush in manually behind it. Keeping your hands out of the machinery while it runs is itself a setting, and it is the one most beginners struggle with.

Step 4: Review and manage from the dashboard

The dashboard is where everything lands: your balance and open positions, the performance of each running strategy, the fee each transaction carried, and the audit history of every setting change. Its main job is to answer three questions quickly: what is running, how is it doing, and what did it cost.

Spend your first sessions reading rather than adjusting. Look at how a prepared strategy behaved over the past weeks before you change its parameters. When you do adjust, change one thing at a time and give it time to show an effect; changing three settings at once teaches you nothing about which one mattered. Your manager can review the dashboard with you on a call, which is the fastest way to learn what each screen means.

A useful rhythm for the first month: check the dashboard twice a week, read the monthly report when it lands, and hold one call with your manager to review what the numbers did. After that first month you will know which parts of the platform matter for your setup and which you can safely ignore. Most clients settle into ten minutes a week, which is the entire point of an automated approach.

Important notes before you fund the account

No strategy, automated or manual, guarantees a profit. Algorithms find statistical patterns; markets sometimes break the pattern. You can lose part or all of the amount you deposit, and the deposit levels on the Fees & Pricing page describe starting capital, not the price of a guaranteed outcome.

Investment decisions remain yours. The platform gives you information, tools and a human guide, but it does not know your household budget and it will not stop you from over-committing; only you can set that ceiling. Decide your maximum acceptable loss before the first deposit, write it down, and treat it as binding. The full picture is in the risk disclosure, which we ask every new client to read once, properly.

Recommended next pages

Five pages pair naturally with this guide. Crypto Basics explains the asset class in plain language if digital assets are new to you. Deposit & Withdrawal Methods covers the rand payment rails and their timelines. Security details every account control beyond two-step verification. FAQ answers the questions new clients actually ask, grouped by theme. And Personal Support describes what your manager can help with beyond the setup call, from deposits to withdrawals.