Reviews Of The Best Crypto Trading Contests
The best crypto contest - Bybit
The best crypto contests are:
Bybit - prize pool 43,000 USDT.
Binance - a generous prize pool of $1.8 million.
Bitget - competition’s prize pool of up to 2,650,000 USDT.
OKX - the Prize pool can get as high as 250,000 USDT.
Huobi - competition’s prize pool of 20,000 USDT.
KuCoin - the prize pool-5000 USDT.
MEXC - prize pool of up to 5,000, 000 USDT.
For seasoned cryptocurrency traders, contests hosted by major exchanges have become a favorite pastime and a chance to put skills to the test against peers from around the globe. With thousands or even millions of dollars at stake, the pressure is on as competitors scrutinize charts and market movements, looking to gain any advantage that could lift them to the top of the leaderboards.
In this article, we examine some of 2024's most anticipated matchups and evaluate the offerings from titans of the industry. From registration details to intricate scoring systems, we break down what it takes to succeed along with insights into how to make the most of this unique opportunity for professional and personal development in the digital asset space.
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Who can participate in crypto competitions?
Anyone holding a verified account on the facilitating exchange platform can participate in their crypto competitions. However, some competitions have additional criteria like minimum account balance.
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How are winners determined?
Winners are usually determined based on criteria like trading volume, profits/losses, number of winning trades over the competition period.
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Do competitions require any entry/participation fees?
No, crypto trading competitions hosted by major exchanges are completely free to enter and participate in.
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What trading strategies work best for competitions?
Since time duration is small, strategies focusing on short-term trading and profit targets work better than long-term holding. Sniper entries, scalping, breakout trading are strategies traders often deploy to maximize volume/profits in competitions.
What is a crypto contest?
Crypto contest is a trading platform-facilitated event where professional traders compete for crypto-based prizes. Most contests feature a leaderboard where the top performers and winning criteria are displayed for all to see.
Usually, winning criteria are pegged at trading volume and profitability. Contests can run from a few minutes to months and there are no hard and fast rules to joining. Each trading platform reserves the right to set its rules of engagement. For instance, TU rules stipulate having a verified account as a prerequisite for joining their contest.
Best crypto contests
Here are the best contests to consider in 2023:
1 Bybit
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Dubai, Bybit is one of the industry's most proficient contest-holding crypto exchange platforms. The platform features a decent KYC-compliant protocol, and DeFi spot trading supporting architecture which enhances its contest holding capacity.
Since its creation, the platform has hosted three contests - BTC Brawl, World Series of Trading, and its WSOT 2023 competition which has since ended. Bybit’s contest is not an all-comer's affair. For instance, participating in the 2023 contest required creating an account, making a first deposit and registering for the contest.
The black and yellow themed platform prohibits canceling more than ten orders per minute, market makers, VIPs and institutional users from the competition.
Using the derivative trading volume indices, participants competed to draw from the 43,000 USDT prize pool as they traded USDC, BTC, USDT, and ETH perpetual contracts. Eligibility to draw from the prize pool depends on contestants’ derivatives trading volume which must hover around $5,000 and above. Interestingly, the winning pool increases as more traders join the fray to test their trading skills.
2 Binance
Binance is regarded as one of the most successful crypto exchange platforms in the world. It was founded by Changpeng Zhao in 2017 as a global player in the then emerging global crypto market. It has since launched two cryptocurrencies - Binance coin (BNB) and BUSD which is dubbed as the world's third-largest stablecoin using the market capitalization index.
Binance crypto competition comes in three dimensions – team, individual and broker solo competition. Crypto enthusiasts can compete across the three dimensions provided that they follow the competition’s rules of engagement.
To be eligible, users must have their account verified through a series of simple processes. To determine the winner, Binance considers trading volume, and Buys and Sells. It also reserves the right to determine the crypto pair to trade at each dimension of its competition.
Also, the platform disqualifies wash trades, market manipulating trades and illegal bulk account registrations. A generous prize pool of $1.8 million amidst several other rewards makes Binance crypto trading competitions worthy of consideration.
3 Bitget
Bitget was founded in 2018. It operates across 100 countries and territories where it offers crypto trading services including futures copy, spot, demo, and futures trading services. Its over 8 million registered users, mostly domiciled in China and Korea can not only trade cryptocurrencies and allied assets, they can also access web3-based capabilities.
Like Binance and Bybit, this crypto exchange platform offers its registered users the opportunity to win exciting prizes from its crypto competitions. However, to participate in these competitions, users must hold a minimum asset of 100 USDT in futures assets excluding bonuses and promotions at the time of registering for the competitions. Sub, market maker, and API trading accounts are exempted from participating.
The top 10 participants are entitled to draw from the competition’s prize pool of up to 2,650,000 USDT. The winner earns 40% of the competition prize pool. The 2nd and 3rd positions earn 20 and 10% of the prize pool respectively, while the remaining top 7 share 30% of the prize pool. Winners are strictly determined by considering users’ account initial net value, and users’ accounts final net value.
Bitget takes things a step further by offering rewards of up to 50,000 USDT in demo assets for inviting users to participate in the competition.
4 OKX
According to crypto market analysts, OKX is the second biggest crypto exchange by trading volume globally. Its core competence includes basic, p2p crypto trading, derivatives and margin trading. Apart from its highly successful crypto exchange capabilities, OKX is a global leader in bot trading and wallet creation.
Founded in 2017 by Star Xu, OKX offers crypto traders and enthusiasts a chance to compete in crypto competitions to maximize returns on their crypto assets. The platform’s crypto competition comes in two dimensions – a summer trading competition and a dynamic prize pool. The summer trading competition ran from 24th May 2023 to the 19th of June, 2023.
To be eligible for the competition, users must be an affiliated user with a unique affiliate referral code. Users must also conform to the platform's KYC protocol by completing its KYC-1 identity authentication.
Winners are determined using two parameters: the highest profit amount and the best PnL%. While the competition’s prize pool is not usually fixed, it increases as more participants join the competition. The Prize pool can get as high as 250,000 USDT.
5 Huobi
Huobi is a crypto exchange publicly listed company with spread across Asia and the United States. Since its incorporation in 2013, by Leon Li and Du Jun, the platform has continued to blaze the trail and show unflinching commitment to the crypto digital tech space. A testament to its commitment to the crypto digital tech space is its crypto derivatives trading contest.
The last contest ran between 12:00.00 (UTC) between June 19, 2022 and June 29 2022. The participation requirement was pretty simple. All it took was registering an account with Huobi Exchange and clicking on the event link from the exchange website. The next step was to undergo an ID verification to verify the identity of the participants.
Participants were ranked by their PnL ratio, cumulative trading volumes of USDT-M contracts and profits to determine the winner. Winners shared from the competition prize pool of 20,000 USDT prize pool. There are indications that the 2023 competition will feature a larger prize pool.
6 KuCoin
This crypto exchange platform was founded in 2017 by Johnny Lyu who has since served as its CEO. It offers crypto exchange services to customers spread across 200 countries. Comparatively low transaction fees, interest on crypto assets, support for a wide range of cryptocurrencies and crypto competitions are some of the platform's selling points.
KuCoin’s 2023 VIP challenge trading competition ran between June 21, 2023 and August 31, 2023. Participation requirements included creating a KuCoin account and then filling in an online form signifying the intent to participate.
The platform frowns at creating duplicate accounts to increase winning chances, account swapping, and the use of false accounts. Contestants risk disqualification for the breach of the competition’s rules of engagement.
Unfortunately, the 2023 competition’s prize pool of a negligible 5000 USDT leaves little to be desired. Going forward, it might be necessary to increase the future competition prize pool to attract worthy traders to the platform.
7 MEXC
Since its 2018 inception, MEXC has carved a niche as one of the industry's most stable, high liquidity and high-performing exchange platforms. Its over 10 million users spread across 170 countries are a testament to its great crypto trading and exchange capabilities.
To sustain its not so strong grasp of the market, the platform organized one of the best crypto contests of 2023. Named the September futures competition, the contest runs between the 8th of September, 2023 and the 22nd of September, 2023.
To be eligible, users must have more than 300 USDT in their futures account equity. Competition events include the daily trading challenge which comprises the daily lucky draw, daily checkpoint reward, daily trading volume ranking and a host of other competitions.
The September futures competition features a prize pool of up to 5,000, 000 USDT out of which a 1,000,000 USDT prize pool has been unlocked by the competition’s current 9,804 participants.
It is worthy of note that similar competitions offering generous, mouthwatering prizes as the above-described ones dot the Forex market landscape.
Why participate in crypto trading contests?
There are several justifications for considering a crypto contest or a Forex demo contest in 2023 as the case may be. Some of the reasons are discussed below:
Skill development
There is no better way of honing your crypto trading skills than putting it to the test against the world through a contest. This allows you to perfect your skills as you get real-life exposure and insights into different trading strategies while following strict rules of engagement. Furthermore, crypto competitions happen in a deeply regulated digital environment allowing you to work under some sort of pressure as you master the psychology of crypto trading.
Most importantly, it allows you to build confidence in your trading ability as you put your capabilities to the test. It is no wonder that there is a strong correlation between trading competitions and technical skills development.
Hands-on-experience
No one gets better at anything by simply reading about it. To better understand the highly dynamic crypto exchange market, taking courses and burning midnight candles digesting expertly crafted courses is not enough. It is important to gather real life hands on experience to put your knowledge to practical use and applicability.
Due to their low barriers of entry, crypto competitions are a viable and highly recommended way of gathering real life experience to attain a mastery of the crypto space.
Prize incentives
While crypto competitions are not a get rich quick scheme, the prize incentives are extremely difficult to ignore. Participating in these competitions is not a zero sum game. You stand a chance of winning exciting prizes while mastering your trading skills.
Prize incentives range from a few thousand USDT to millions of cash convertible digital based assets amidst several exciting rewards, bonuses and other freebies.
Networking opportunities
It is difficult to master crypto trading in isolation. Crypto contests provide an avenue for budding and established traders to network, and share trading strategies and insights to maneuver this complex, highly volatile market. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity for participants to cross-fertilize ideas and proffer solutions to navigating government imposed crypto regulations and restrictions.
Traffic
Crypto competitions benefit the crypto exchange platforms as well as their users. They are proven to drive traffic and enhance the adoption of crypto exchange platforms for trading, and allied activities.
Disadvantages of crypto contests
Risk of overtrading
Driven by the need to beat the competition and draw from a prize pool, traders are prone to overtrading during competitions. Overtrading connotes a situation where traders neglect their strategies to maximize winning chances. This puts them at the risk of incurring avoidable losses resulting from bad trading decisions and transaction fees.
Limited real world experience
An unhealthy fixation on crypto competitions may hinder traders from having real world trading experience. It is best to balance the desire to win from trading contests learning crypto trading for real life applicability.
Focus on short term gains
Competitions have the propensity to ingrain the focus on short term gains into traders which can be antithetical to long term trading success.
Best crypto brokers 2024
Exness
The trading conditions of the Exness broker are among the most attractive ones on the market. The ability to choose the category of opening an account allows you to trade and receive rewards at different levels. The absence of restrictions on the volume of open transactions is an additional advantage as well as the presence of Forex bonuses Exness.
Exness offers a wide choice of trading assets. Broker’s clients can trade currency pairs (majors, minors and exotic), indices, stocks, energies, cryptocurrencies, and metals. The minimum deposit on standard accounts is $1, professional accounts - $200. There is floating spread on all account types. On Raw Spread and Zero accounts, the spread is from 0.0 pips; Pro – from 0.1 pips, standard accounts – from 0.3 pips. Immediately after registration of a real account, traders can choose any leverage from 1:1 to 1:2000. Once a trader closes at least 10 positions and trades 5 standard lots (500 lots for the cent account), the limits on leverage are lifted.
No commission per lot is charged on standard accounts and the Pro account. On the Raw Spread account, commission per lot is $3.5 on side, or $7 per closed trade. The Commission per lot on the Zero account is $0.2 (one side) or $0.4 per trade. There is Market Execution on all account types, and on the Pro account – Market and Instant Execution. Traders from Muslim countries can open a swap-free account.
Forex4you
Trading conditions at Forex4you are among the most attractive ones on the market. First of all, there are no requirements for the minimum deposit amount: according to the conditions, the replenishment amount is from $0 for all types of accounts. With a minimum transaction volume of 0.01, the trader is offered a leverage of up to 1: 1000, which is one of the largest values on Forex. Stop Out Level is 10–20% depending on the type of account.
Forex4you offers 150+ trading instruments, such as Forex pairs, indices, commodities, and stocks. Also, standard and cent accounts, cash back, as well as bonus and partnership programs are available. Forex4you provides access to the Share4you copy trading platform as a passive income option. Each trader can be both an investor and a signal provider.
Forex4you offers cent, classic, and professional accounts, which differ in spread. There are fixed spreads starting from 2 pips and floating spreads starting from 0.1 pips. Pro accounts have fixed fees per lot, which are $0.10 on the Cent Pro account and $8 on the Classic Pro. Copy trading on the Share4you platform is available on each of the accounts, except for the Classic Standard. The lock is allowed on all account types. Deposit and withdrawal methods include Visa/Mastercard cards and electronic payment systems, such as WebMoney, Skrill, and Neteller.
AMarkets
Trading conditions of AMarkets are attractive for those who aim at long-term cooperation with the broker and are prepared to grow professionally. The minimum deposit is USD 100. Leverage is up to 1:100 on the Crypto account.
AMarkets operates based on STP and ECN models and executes orders of the clients at a speed of up to 100 ms (30-50 ms on average). This kind of high order execution speed allows traders to trade successfully with AMarkets. All clients of the broker have access to trading news, phone dealing and negative balance protection. Using ready-made robots and EAs is allowed. Traders can use the broker’s copy trading service to earn passive income.
AMarkets offers accounts with floating (from 0.0 pips) and fixed (from 3 pips) spreads. On an ECN account, a commission per lot is charged in the amount of $2.5 (one side), while there is no commission per lot on Standard and Fixed accounts. For trading, the broker offers MT4 and MT5 platforms and also MultiTerminal based on MetaTrader 4 for simultaneous management of several accounts. In addition to cash back and bonus for switching from another broker, AMarkets offers real money for income earned on a demo account, as well as promotions and lotteries.
Team that worked on the article
Glory is a professional writer for the Traders Union website with over 5 years of experience in creating content in the areas of NFT, Crypto, Metaverse, Blockchain, or Web3 in general. Over the last couple of years, Glory has also traded on different cryptocurrency and NFT platforms including Binance, Coinbase, Opensea, and others.
Dr. BJ Johnson is a PhD in English Language and an editor with over 15 years of experience. He earned his degree in English Language in the U.S and the UK. In 2020, Dr. Johnson joined the Traders Union team. Since then, he has created over 100 exclusive articles and edited over 300 articles of other authors.
Mirjan Hipolito is a journalist and news editor at Traders Union. She is an expert crypto writer with five years of experience in the financial markets. Her specialties are daily market news, price predictions, and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO).