I've heard a lot of gripes about trading competitions on exchanges stuff like unfair rules, bots taking over, or hidden catches. So I decided to give it a shot myself.
I entered a smaller trading contest three months back and ended up snagging $100. Gave it another go later and walked away with $250. Not a huge change in my life, but definitely a boost.
From this little journey, I learned three things:
1. Don't knock it until you try it.
2. Some contests do actually level the playing field.
3. Choose competitions that fit your skills and strengths.
I'm curious if anyone else here has had similar experiences or maybe completely different ones with trading contests?
Trading competitions are the worst means to know if you are a good or bad trader, but if it's organized by a reputable company, it will surely be fair and worth it without any bad bots and unfair practices allowed by the organizers. Many bad actors would try, but will only be ejected out.
Nonetheless, congratulations on your winning, and since it's working for you, why not try it often and get the wallet account filled up? All you need to ensure is that you are not gambling. So long as you know what you are doing and not winning on luck, then you are good to go.
For me, trading competitions are not my thing, they often bring out the aggressive trading in me, which is not good. This often affect my real trading as well.
I don't do trading competition and see no reason for me to do so, so there is no point competing on what is not sure i will get a certain result form it, an also trading not to please anyone, but for my own interest, this is why i only believe in challenging myself for doing the best, if i had failed before, then its another challenge for me to do more better and try harder next time, because trading could be so interesting and at the same time disappointing.
The thing is, if a site organises these competitions, it's because it makes a profit, usually through commissions. No matter how much the OP tries to covertly convince us how cool they are, and I don't think his nickname is a coincidence, they are usually ruinous for the average trader. They are somewhat similar to wagering competitions in casinos. If the required trading level is close to your usual level, it makes sense to try, but putting a lot of effort into it means the odds are against you.
This makes sense, and I guess your reason for success in both competitions that you have been in is based on this fact.
The general advice is that you should avoid trading competitions because there is an uncertainty that you will be able to handle the pressure that comes with, as many people can't. But if you are certain that you can handle the pressure and you have the strategy and psychology to support it, then you can actually make some money from trading competitions.
I am not sure trading competitions get the best out of an average trader. In a competition you are trying to beat other competitors, so that could affect how you minimize risks and you could lose money and still end up not winning the competition. Experienced traders might find these competitions much more exciting and they would be able to control their emotions as well. I think there are better ways for an average trader to hone their trading skills, rather than through these competitions.
I've seen some guys who are into trading props and have been on it for years now that they couldn't achieve their independence in trading to break forth the challenge given, this shows that sometime we see things afar and when we got to it, we see another picture entirely about that same thing, it occurs so many times like that, but we just have to move on and continue with the challenge, don't compete with anyone in trading, because you may end up losing beyond reasonable doubt, also don't try to challenge your own self than being intimidated by what others can do.
Where do you join these trading contests and it was free to join? Well it's really encouraging but never have any wins before with trading probably just a skill issue of mine and was impulsive of a trader I guess. Not that I can still remember it but most of the time I was with it, probably bots dominate or there was a team that probably has good traders. I think it was easy to say you need to try but in reality the difficulty comes mid way.
It's not about just jumping into a trading contest because it sounds exciting, one must first know and digest the risks involved and bear in mind that the mindset and strategy here, is different than one would need for managing a real world investment portfolio.
If you can get into form by mastering the discipline to adhere strictly to an aggressive return-seeking model, then also how to manage your portfolio while analyzing top performances by others and how to interpret and use signals to leverage your stand, then you know you have done the work that would qualify you to join any of these trading competitions, otherwise please stick to mastering trading for regular returns.
Currently, there are both broker hosted demo contests, real money & futures championships and proprietary firms challenges ongoing. Learn the risk management involved and register accordingly.
A lot of the replies I see here actually doesn't reflect my experience maybe because the kinds of comps you guys are referring to are different from the ones that have given me these wins.
1. I don't actually compete to be the best. There are categories; and the ones I've won are pnl challenges and trading volume rank challenges tied to a particular trading niche.
2. Winners were actually drawn from a rank-based system tied to our pnl or trading volume in a pool of say 1,000 traders or more with each of the layers of traders (based on pnl or trading volume) winning a fair share of the prize pool which was communicated before the start of the event.
When trading I always prefer to move at my place, when you are competing you are working with targets set by others and this puts you under too much pressure, not everyone is capable of functioning like that. I like to take out my time to strategize, this means that I can spend time drawing trend lines as long as it takes before I execute, in a competition I may not be able to work that way because there might be a specific timing to meet up with
When it comes to trading challenges, the game providers usually speaks alot about using bots and if any user is caught in the process he would be removed asap. There are many trading challenges organised by many big companies within the year but just few are heard off. And sometimes the once not heard of are actually the best and trusted once. Exchange like bybit runs such crypto challenges from time to time, it's a way to encourage new and experienced traders to test their skills and remain in the market for long. Long enough to master their craft. If you end up losing the challenge, you can try again another time.
The ones I tried were on Bitget and specifically on Onchain market. Got 50 BGB (~$250) for $50k+ trading volume for trading onchain tokens for a period of 1 week; got another 20 BGB (~$100) for sharing pnl challenge with a pnl of 830% on ANI trade. Both wins were in June and August this year.
And oh, entry was free if I remembered correctly.
Congratulations, on your first few success from that trading competitions although you shojld be well aware also that you risk losing if you try again because that is how it works, no guarantee next winning, i habe not engaged in any trading competition beforsince i am not that lucky at such things, so i prefer trading alone and when lose i just stay low key and get over it likewise when i gain no one knows about that too.
The reason why you are getting the response yoh are getting is because, most members of this forum may not engage in such thing as trading combo competition so you dont have to blame them for not understanding your point.
Were the competitors given the minimum amount to participate and how much did you use so throughout the 1 week competition, did you use any strategy or you actually play your hand on the tokens assigned for you to trade on.
These wins are pretty much huge to me, maybe there were less number of participants that share the big amount of the total pool.
Yeah, the minimum buy was $50 for new traders who would have to check-in everyday to get a minimum number of credit like alpha points, I guess. But for existing traders, the minimum trading volume was $1k to get a minimum share of the prize pool.
My strategy was minimal TA, more FA and lots of smart money flow tracking, targetting small-scale daily gains between 15 - 25%. That was enough to get me some reasonable profits after deductions for trading fee and slippages.
I tried trading competition before but I wasn't lucky enough to win the prizes. I learned a lot from the competition that it is difficult to achieve a goal. I feel that trading can cause emotions to become high especially if we can not hit the target.
You can search for the trading competition type you want but make sure you meet the requirements and can win the prizes. Many traders, newbie or pro will do their best to be the winner. That will not be easy to beat them.
Besides that, you should have good skills in trading so you can achieve a better position.
Well, if there is an API, then there should not really be a problem, because bots make life easier. Trading is just making it 24/7, and you can definitely take advantage of the market with it.
This depends on the category that you have. This should be clearly stated in the terms and conditions. In essence, participating in these types of activities affects trading behavior by training you in discipline and risk management.
Even if you end up losing the challenge, there is nothing much to loose until and unless you make the trades profitable. If you end up in losses during the trading competition than it might totally depend on your trading skills and lack of proper research.
These trading competitions are nothing but just rewarding for placing regular trades on specific pair. They really encourage new traders instead of experienced ones because new traders can not only profit by placing the trade but also by participating and winning the competition.
I don't think much of these platforms will worry about bot trading. Bot trading is okay as long as you are not breaking any rules. This is definitely not breaking of rules.
You still have your money involved and is used in active trades so the platforms will be okay if they have not specified about bot trading in their competition's rules.
As I've thought, they're been buzzing lately and probably eyeing to be one of the top exchanges, I may take an eye about this exchange and thanks for the response. Never been touching exchanges or any trades these days as I'm mostly holding on my investments but if I would try it again I'd make sure it's just a small portfolio to try considering how volatile the market. If it's free, that's more than delicious then