The first ever World Series of Trading (WSOT) has concluded, with winners taking home a staggering $1.27 million worth of prizes. The space-themed event, hosted by derivatives exchange Bybit, involved 12,368 traders from 135 teams. The Singapore exchange intends to host the competition twice a year going forward.
Featuring a prize pool of over 100 BTC, the three-week World Series saw traders from around the world unlock 100 BTC in the main BTC Troop Showdown event, while an additional 90,000 of USDT was won in the individual USDT Solo Throwdown. Bybit has pledged to donate 5% of the total prize pool to charity.
Big Winners Trade Their Way to the Podium
South Korean collective W.T.C ran out as winners in the BTC Troop Showdown, claiming a top prize of 35 BTC – or a little over $400,000 – after three weeks of intense trading. The firm’s star trader, junki84, also came out on top in the individual event, posting an incredible 5242% P&L and 4974% in the USDT Solo Throwdown.
While the Jalapeño troop finished second in the team event, Live Traders Suck, a group captained by poker player Mike McDonald, claimed third place. Jalapeño’s SalsaTekila was a distant second to junki84 in personal P&L with a score of 3956%, and took to Twitter to claim he would be “well over 5000% ROI” if the competition had lasted “a while longer.”
“We are honored to bring the exhilaration of competitive trading to the crypto community with WSOT, and grateful for the incredible enthusiasm and support the competition received,” said Ben Zhou, CEO of the Singapore-based exchange. “WSOT will return even bigger and better in the next edition.”
Bybit previously hosted the BTC Brawl tournament, with a prize pool of 50 BTC in the trading competition held at the end of 2019. With the treasure chest surging in value for the World Series of Trading, the event seems likely to become a fixture of the crypto calendar.
A Booming Defi Market
If those trading results seem astronomical, it’s merely a reflection of the current market. Defi in particular has continued to make waves, with Yearn.finance’s YFI token one of many to post incredible gains: its price increased eight-fold in August. A platform built on top of the Ethereum blockchain that allows yield aggregation, Yearn users utilize disparate defi apps like Aave and Curve to maximize lending scenarios.
YFI wasn’t the only runaway success story from the defi realm, with LINK, UMA, and ETH all surging in value over the past month. Bitcoin, by comparison, rose by 2.6% in August having registered its best July price performance for eight years.
Bitcoin is not divorced from defi, of course: crypto research firm Messari suggests that half a billion dollars worth of BTC has been tokenized on the Ethereum network for use in decentralized finance protocols.