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Contest rules

These rules govern every TradeWars weekly contest. By entering a contest, you accept them in full — read them before you trade.

Last updated: 1 August 2026

1. Eligibility

  • You must be 18 years or older at the time of entry.
  • One participant, one active account. Each person competes with a single linked demo at a time. You may restart with a fresh demo during the week — up to a limit (see §2) — but never run several at once, and never enter an account on someone else's behalf.
  • Residents of jurisdictions where contests of this kind are unlawful are excluded from participation.
  • Employees, contractors and affiliates of TradeWars may participate for practice but are excluded from prizes.

2. Entry

  • Entry is free. No deposit is required and no real money is ever at risk — all trading takes place on a demo account.
  • No purchase, deposit or broker account opening is required to enter. To take part you need an Axi MT5 demo account (step-by-step guide). An Axi demo account you already hold is equally valid. If you do not have one, you may open an account through the TradeWars referral link — axi.com/int/live-account?promocode=817793 — but this is entirely optional: entry, ranking and prize eligibility are strictly identical whether or not you use it.
  • Affiliate disclosure. The link above is an affiliate link: TradeWars may receive a commission from partner brokers for accounts opened through it, and only where the account holder deposits and trades with real money. This never affects participants' costs and confers no advantage whatsoever in the contest. TradeWars provides no investment advice and does not recommend trading with real money. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money rapidly.
  • Contest accounts must be MetaTrader 5 (MT5) demo accounts.
  • Link your demo account to TradeWars using the read-only investor password. This gives TradeWars view-only access to results — we can never place, modify or close trades on your account.
  • You can join at any time during the week. Link your account whenever you like and you enter the contest already running — no need to wait for Monday.
  • Your starting point is your equity at the moment you connect, not your account's opening balance. Anything you traded before connecting does not count, in either direction: we can only measure what we can observe. This keeps the contest fair — nobody can grow an account privately and then link it to claim the gains. Joining on Monday therefore gives you the full week to compete.
  • One active account at a time. Each participant may run a single linked demo account. You may switch to a fresh account during the week — for instance to restart after a bad run — but you must remove your current account first. Running several accounts in parallel (to "all-in" many at once) is not allowed.
  • Up to 2 accounts per week, from the contest week of 7 September 2026. You may use at most two different demo accounts within a single contest week (still one active at a time); until that week the limit is five. Removing an account does not give the slot back — the allowance counts every account you entered that week, whether you withdrew it or it was eliminated. Once it is used, you can link a fresh one when the next week opens on Monday. The counter resets every week. The limit is being tightened because a return earned across five discarded attempts is not the same achievement as one earned on a single account, and the prize should go to the second.

3. Contest window & starting balance

  • Each contest runs from Monday 00:00 UTC to Sunday 23:59 UTC.
  • Any Axi MT5 demo account is eligible, whatever its balance, account type or leverage. Rankings are based on the weekly return % measured from each account's own weekly baseline — its Monday equity, or its equity at the moment you connect if you join mid-week — so account size gives no advantage. The recommended setup, used by our guides, is 10,000 USD, type USD-ROW-PRO, leverage 1:1000 (see the account setup guide).
  • Positions still open at the Sunday 23:59 UTC deadline are marked at their equity value at that moment — you do not need to flatten your book, but open profit and loss counts as-is.

4. Ranking

  1. Participants are ranked by weekly return: each contest week starts exactly where the previous one ended: the Monday baseline is the account’s closing equity of the previous week (accounts joining mid-week start from their first reading), and performance is measured from that baseline until the Sunday 23:59 UTC close. The leaderboard ranks by that return %; each account’s real equity is shown alongside for full transparency. Ties favor the lower maximum drawdown, then the lower trade count.
  2. Maximum loss — 25% (from the week of 17 August 2026). To stay in the running, an account must not fall more than 25% below the equity it started the week with. A demo that opens Monday at 10,000 is out if it touches 7,500 — and that floor never moves, so profits only widen your margin. Deposits are excluded, exactly as they are from your return. The moment the floor is breached, the entry is eliminated from that week's ranking and prizes; elimination is final for the week. We email you when it happens, and your entry stays listed at the bottom of the leaderboard with an OUT badge — full transparency. From there you can either keep trading that account for practice (it just can't win this week) or remove it and link a fresh demo to get straight back in the running, within the 5-per-week limit — the OUT badge goes away with the account. Note: elimination removes you from that week's ranking and weekly prize — that week's result still counts towards your monthly total (§7).
  3. Why it changed on 17 August 2026. Weeks 32 and 33 measured the 25% from an account's highest equity of the week rather than its starting equity. That punished the wrong people: in week 33, 25 of the 111 eliminations hit accounts that were in profit — one was removed while up 13% on the week, having gone from 10,000 to 15,269 and back to 11,312 — while an account sitting at −20%, which never had a good day, kept competing. A limit meant to catch blow-ups was instead removing traders for winning and then giving some back. Measuring from the start fixes that, and matches how Crypto Fund Trader's own 2-phase programme works: a fixed floor on the initial balance that never trails. Weeks 32 and 33 keep their original results — we do not rewrite a week after it has been played.
  4. Deposits are not performance: balance operations (deposits, withdrawals, credits) made on the demo account during a contest week are excluded from the weekly return. Topping up an account cannot improve its ranking.
  5. Ties are broken in the following order:
    1. lower maximum drawdown during the week;
    2. fewer total trades;
    3. earlier registration to the contest.

5. Fair play

The contest rewards genuine trading skill. The following are prohibited:

  • sharing an account with, or trading on behalf of, another person;
  • copy-trading between participants, in either direction;
  • exploiting demo-pricing glitches — including off-market fills, price errors, or any quote that does not reflect the real market;
  • any coordinated behavior between accounts, such as hedging opposite positions across entries to guarantee one winner.
  • TradeWars may operate demo accounts of its own to keep contests lively. They compete under exactly the same rules as every other participant. The full trading activity of every ranked account — open positions and closed trades — is publicly visible on its trader profile, so any result can be audited by anyone.

Expert Advisors (EAs) and automated strategies are allowed, provided they do not exploit demo-specific behavior that would not exist on a live account. Whether a given strategy crosses that line is determined by TradeWars, whose call is final.

6. Disqualification

  • TradeWars may disqualify any entry that breaches these rules, at any point during or after a contest.
  • Separately, an entry that exceeds the 25% maximum drawdown (§4, from the week of 3 August 2026) is automatically eliminated from that week — this is a risk limit, not a sanction, and does not count as a rule breach.
  • Disqualified entries forfeit their ranking and any prizes for the affected contest. Rankings below the disqualified entry move up accordingly.
  • Repeated or serious abuse results in a permanent ban from all TradeWars contests.

7. Prizes

  • Weekly: the top 3 traders of each weekly contest each receive a €5,000 CFT evaluation account at Crypto Fund Trader (CFT).
  • Positive performance required: only accounts that finish the week above their Monday baseline (a positive weekly return) can win a prize. If a top-3 slot would fall to an account at or below its baseline, the prize passes to the next eligible trader — and may go unawarded if none qualifies.
  • All entries compete under identical rules and eligibility. Every account’s trading activity is publicly auditable on its trader profile.
  • Monthly — Champion of the month: the best trader of each calendar month receives a €25,000 CFT evaluation account. The first month awarded is August 2026 (July is excluded — the platform opened mid-month). The monthly award works as follows:
    • Which weeks count: only the weekly contests entirely inside the month (Monday and Sunday both in that month). A week straddling two months counts for neither — it keeps its own weekly prize. August 2026 = the 4 weeks of 3–30 August.
    • Score: the sum of your weekly returns % over those weeks. Consistency wins: a losing week subtracts from your total, so a single lucky week is not enough.
    • Every account you trade counts. If you use several demos in the same week (up to 5, §2), each of their results is added to your monthly total — and a week you were eliminated in, or an account you removed mid-week, still counts. You cannot erase a bad run by dropping the account.
    • Eligibility: you must have actually traded in at least 2 of the month's weeks (a demo left connected without trading does not count as competing) and finish with a positive total. TradeWars-operated accounts are excluded, as always.
    • Ties are broken by lower cumulative drawdown, then more weeks competed, then earlier entry.
    • The champion is decided automatically at the close of the month's last full week, and can also win weekly prizes in the same month.
  • Funded accounts are issued by Crypto Fund Trader and are governed by CFT's own terms and conditions. TradeWars is not affiliated with CFT and does not operate the funded accounts.
  • Winners must complete the prize claim — identity verification and signature of the profit-share agreement — within 14 days of being notified. If a winner does not complete the claim in time, the prize passes to the next ranked trader.

8. Profit-share agreement

  • Before receiving a funded account, each winner signs a profit-share agreement with TradeWars.
  • Under that agreement, the trader keeps 75% of net payouts from the funded account; 25% goes to TradeWars. Two splits apply in sequence, so here it is in money: on €1,000 of profit, CFT keeps 20% under their 80/20 live-stage split and pays you €800; you then remit 25% of that payout, €200; you keep €600 — 60% of the profit. TradeWars' 25% is always computed on the payout actually received, never on profit before CFT's cut.
  • The funded account is monitored read-only. Winners connect their funded account to TradeWars with its investor (read-only) password and keep it connected for the duration of the agreement — that is how the 75/25 split is administered fairly on both sides. It can never place, modify or close a trade, nor withdraw. Your master password is never requested. Publishing those results publicly is a separate, entirely optional choice you can grant or withdraw at any time, with no effect on your prize.
  • The full mechanics — payout timing, reporting, and what counts as a net payout — are set out in the agreement itself, provided at claim time.

9. Changes & disputes

  • TradeWars may update these rules between contests, never mid-contest. The version published on this page at the start of a contest is the version that applies to it.
  • Specific parameters that may evolve — such as anti-abuse thresholds and the monthly scoring formula — apply as published on this page at contest start.
  • TradeWars decisions on rankings, tie-breaks and disqualifications are final.
  • Questions or disputes: [email protected].

Entering a TradeWars contest constitutes acceptance of these rules and of the Terms of Service. TradeWars is an independent platform — it is not a broker and is not affiliated with Axi or Crypto Fund Trader.