How trading tournaments work
What is a trading tournament?
A trading tournament is a timed, head-to-head competition where traders are scored on how well they trade a live market over a fixed session.
On Sivex Play, every entrant in a tournament starts with the same $10,000 in simulated capital and trades the same instruments — real BTC, ETH, and other live price feeds. The session lasts a set length. When it ends, everyone's result is measured and ranked on a single leaderboard.
The trading is paper trading on live feeds: prices are real and move in real time, but no order is routed to a real exchange. What is real is the entry fee and the prize pool.
Why compete against the lobby instead of the market?
Because it isolates skill. Everyone trades the same market over the same window, so the market itself is a constant — what varies is how each trader handles it.
In ordinary trading, a rising market can make a mediocre trader look good and a falling one can sink a careful trader. In a tournament, every entrant faces the identical market, so a green or red session lifts or drops everyone together. Your rank depends only on out-trading the rest of the lobby — the shared market conditions cancel out.
Same capital. Same markets. Same clock. The only variable left is the decisions you make — which is exactly what the tournament measures.
How does a tournament run, start to finish?
- Registration. Each tournament opens for registration ahead of its start — typically six hours before. You pick an event and enter.
- Start. At the scheduled time the session goes live and every entrant begins with the same $10,000.
- Live trading. For the session length you open and close positions on the tournament's instruments.
- Settlement. At the close, each result is scored on risk-adjusted return and ranked against the lobby.
- Payout. The paid band of the leaderboard receives a share of the prize pool.
Every result is also committed on-chain so it can be independently verified — see provably fair.
What formats and buy-in levels are there?
Every scheduled tournament is a 30-minute event, with buy-ins from free to $50. For higher stakes, players host their own custom matches, from $100 up to $500 and beyond.
Lengths. Every scheduled tournament runs 30 minutes, and every one uses the same scoring rule — a 10% drawdown threshold and a 1.5× multiplier (see tournament scoring). User-created custom matches can run 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes.
| Free | Free-to-enter freeroll tournaments |
|---|---|
| $5 – $10 | Low-stakes events — most of the daily schedule |
| $25 – $50 | Standard and flagship tournaments |
| $100 – $500+ | Player-hosted custom matches, for higher stakes |
A higher buy-in means a larger prize pool, not a different game — the format, scoring, and starting capital are identical across every level.
When do tournaments run?
Tournaments run on a recurring weekly schedule, with several events every day across global trading sessions.
Slots are timed to the Asia, London, and New York market sessions, so there is usually a tournament starting within a few hours whatever your timezone. Each day has a flagship event at 15:00 UTC, and the week builds toward the Sunday Sivex Major, the weekly headline event.
Weekday tournaments trade the full instrument set — crypto plus metals and crude — while weekend events are crypto-only. The live schedule is always on the tournaments page.
How do prize pools and payouts work?
Entry fees fund the prize pool. Sivex takes 10% on $5–$50 entries, 8% on $75–$150 and 7% on custom matches; everything else goes back to players.
The more entrants a tournament draws, the larger its pool. Every figure below is a share of entry money, and it is printed on the entry card before you pay:
| 84–87% — the leaderboard | The main prizes, paid by finishing rank (87% on custom matches, 86% on $75–$150 events, 84% on $5–$50 events) |
|---|---|
| 10% · 8% · 7% — Sivex | The platform fee: 10% on the 30-minute tournaments and $5–$50 entries, 8% on $75–$150 events and the 7-day weekly, 7% on custom matches — printed on every entry card |
| 3% — Interval Kings | Three 10-minute stretches, 1% each, won on the spot |
| 2% — the winning crew | A creator’s community; 70% of it goes back to their members |
| 1% — Creator Clash | The crew owners race each other on their own score; one to three of them are paid, by pot size |
The 6% in side games is still player money — it just reaches players through a second route. Nothing is retained: an interval nobody trades returns to the main prizes, and if no crew qualifies that 2% goes to the Sivex Community Pool — as does the Creator Clash pot when fewer than two crew owners have entered.
Whatever is left after those carves — 84% to 87%, depending on the tier above — is then distributed by finishing rank:
| Up to 4 entrants | Winner takes the pool |
|---|---|
| 5 – 10 entrants | Top 2 paid |
| 11 – 25 entrants | Top 3 paid |
| 26+ entrants | Up to the top 20%, paid across the leaderboard — first place takes about a quarter of the pool, and every winner clears their stake |
Because a full lobby pays so broadly, a strong, risk-aware finish — not only an outright win — earns a payout. There is no minimum-trade requirement to claim a place: every entrant is eligible, and finishing position is decided purely by score.
Common questions
- Do I trade with real money in a Sivex Play tournament?
- No. Every tournament is paper trading on live market price feeds. You are given the same simulated capital as every other entrant — $10,000 — and no order is routed to a real exchange. The entry fee and the prize pool are real; the trading is simulated.
- How long does a trading tournament last?
- Every scheduled Sivex Play tournament is a 30-minute event. User-created custom matches can run 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes.
- How much does it cost to enter?
- Scheduled tournaments run free, $5, $10, $25, and $50 — most of the weekly schedule sits in the $5 to $25 range. For higher stakes, players host their own custom matches, from $100 up to $500 and beyond.
- How many people get paid in a tournament?
- In a full lobby (26 or more entrants), up to the top 20% is paid, distributed across the leaderboard. Smaller lobbies pay fewer places — the top three for 11 to 25 entrants, the top two for 5 to 10, and winner-take-all below that. First place carries a $500 minimum guarantee. Prizes are published in brackets (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th-5th, 6th-10th, 11th-20th and so on), taper smoothly from the top, and every paid finisher takes home at least their stake back.
- When do tournaments run?
- Tournaments run on a recurring weekly schedule with multiple events every day. Each day has a flagship event at 15:00 UTC; the week builds to the Sunday Sivex Major.
◆ Keep learning
What a hosted tournament is, why the host has no advantage, and how the Creator Clash, Interval Kings and crews work for players who join one.
How a creator’s community enters a Sivex Play tournament together, how a crew is scored on its top 10 rather than its size, and how the winning crew’s 2% is shared with the people who showed up.
How Sivex Play ranks traders on risk-adjusted return, why drawdown is penalised, and why the scoring model rewards skill over luck.
How every tournament result is hashed into a Merkle tree, committed to Solana, and made independently verifiable by anyone.
A direct, evidence-based answer to whether a skill-based trading tournament is gambling — explained through the scoring design.
How a skill-based trading tournament compares with a prop firm challenge — cost structure, time commitment, and what each one actually measures.
How a skill-based trading tournament compares with trading your own money on an exchange — bounded risk, asymmetric reward, and why a market crash does not break your plan.
How TradeLab lets you practise trading free on hidden-outcome historical scenarios, and how each session builds your skill rating.
How the Sivex Rating works — TradeLab practice sets your starting rating, tournaments are how you climb — why it is worth climbing, and what a high rating unlocks as the platform grows.
How the Rating Drop works — a cash pool split every two weeks among the top of the Sivex Rating, who qualifies, how the banded payouts work, and why the pool only goes up.
How the Sivex Play referral program works — 15 days of Sivex Pass for the trader you bring, a freeroll pass for both of you on their first deposit, a Shield per qualified referral, and for creators 2% of what their players deposit plus a per-player bounty, in Free Cash.
A plain-language guide to the Sivex Pass — the Run, the Table and the Sivex Playdesk, what else the Pass carries, how billing works against your wallet, what happens at renewal, and how to cancel.
The answer-first guide to trading tournaments — what they are, every format that exists (exchange contests, demo contests, fantasy apps, skill tournaments), how prize pools work, and what separates skill-based scoring from gambling.
Why most trading-competition entrants blow up, the scoring math that actually decides rankings, and the risk-discipline playbook that wins skill-scored tournaments.
Every kind of crypto trading competition compared — exchange volume contests, demo contests, and skill tournaments — and why identical capital with risk-adjusted scoring levels the field.
Where to compete on gold, silver, and crude oil — how commodity trading contests work, the market hours that shape them, and why XAU is a competition staple.
An honest map of the alternatives to FTMO — other prop firms, free broker contests, and skill-based trading tournaments — with the trade-offs of each model spelled out.
The consistency rules, drawdown technicalities, and discretionary reviews that commonly sit between a passed challenge and a paid trader — and what a no-review payout model looks like.
The 2026 field guide to paper trading competitions — free brand-funded contests, broker arenas, and entry-fee skill tournaments — and how prize density differs across them.
How fantasy stock-picking apps differ from live trading tournaments — drafting a portfolio is not trading, and only one of the two scores execution and risk management.
Plain-language definitions of every term used across Sivex Play tournaments, scoring, TradeLab, and rewards.