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Case studies · June 2026
Four competitions · Oct 2025 to May 2026
The numbers sound made up.
They settle on-chain.
Four cities, four live competitions: New York, ETH Denver, DAS NYC, and Coinbase House Miami. This is the verified record of who showed up, what they traded, and exactly why funded skill competitions print volume that looks impossible on paper.
$12.36M
Round-trip notional routed on-chain across the two funded competitions (DAS NYC + Miami). Every fill settled live on the venue, wallet by wallet.
1,349
competition signups across four cities
323
trades executed in the funded comps
35→71%
on-site activation rate, first event to latest
~$0
net cohort P&L, the signature of real two-sided trading
The four competitions
Each one answered a different question. Together they take the model from "does anyone show up" to "verified eight-figure volume on camera" in seven months.
New York
October 2025
Proved the format
228 signups
79 check-ins
35% conversion
3-5h avg dwell
First IRL competition. People did not drop in and leave; they stayed three to five hours to keep trading. That dwell time is what told us the game loop holds attention long enough to convert.
ETH Denver
January 2026
Proved it scales
610 signups
265 traders activated
43% active traders
2.7x vs NYC
Same format, bigger floor. Signups grew 2.7x and the activation rate improved while scaling, the opposite of what booth-style lead capture does at conferences.
DAS NYC
March 2026
Proved the volume
511 signups
363 active traders
71% activation
$6.63M routed
8 funded traders
90 minutes
81 trades
Two layers ran at once. The open arena converted 71% of signups into active traders, the highest rate of any event we have run. The private funded competition put $500 into 8 traders' own wallets and routed $6.63M of round-trip notional in 90 minutes, net cohort P&L of -$521.62. Full results doc.
Coinbase House Miami
May 2026
Proved it on camera
$5.73M routed
12 creator traders
3 days live
242 trades
$1.95M top wallet
Three days inside Coinbase House with creators trading funded wallets on camera, 5-channel co-stream. Top wallet (@andyslaps) alone routed $1.95M. Net cohort P&L: +$53.80 across $5.73M of flow. Full results doc.
"Too good to be true": the arithmetic
The skepticism is fair. $4,000 producing $6.63M of volume sounds like a typo. It is not a typo, and it is not magic; it is margin × leverage × turnover, forced by the competition format itself.
$4,000
margin · 8 traders × $500, seeded into their own wallets
×
leverage
$1 of margin at 100x is $100 of notional per position
×
turnover
81 round trips in 90 min · every position must close to score
=
$6.63M
round-trip notional routed · 1,658x the seed · DAS NYC
Why the format forces volume
- Scored on P&L inside a fixed window. There is no buy-and-hold. Every position has to close before the clock runs out, so every dollar of margin gets cycled again and again.
- Funded wallets change behavior. The seed is sponsor capital airdropped into the trader's own wallet. They keep the upside, so they trade like it is a competition, not their savings account.
- Leverage multiplies every turn. $6.63M over 81 trades is an average round trip of roughly $82K, an ordinary high-leverage position size that the venue fills routinely.
- It has a ceiling, and we say so. Past a sweet spot, liquidations destroy margin faster than it routes volume. Our two funded runs printed 1,658x and 4,774x; we quote that bracket, never a hand-wavy peak.
Why it is not wash trading
- Near-flat net cohort P&L. DAS netted -$521.62, Miami netted +$53.80 across $12.36M of combined flow. A coordinated pump shows directional P&L; a real competition nets to roughly zero because traders take both sides against the live book.
- Real venue, real book, real risk. Trades execute against live liquidity on the venue. Traders get liquidated. The margin is genuinely at risk every round trip.
- Every fill is on-chain. Wallet addresses, timestamps, and fills are independently verifiable. We hand over trade-level data under NDA; nothing in this document asks you to trust us.
- The capital becomes fees. Most of the seed is consumed as trading fees over the run. That consumption is exactly the venue's fee revenue, which is the entire point.
Who the traders actually are
Three distinct segments show up to these competitions, and they convert differently. All three matter for an FTT funnel; only one of them is visible from follower counts.
Creator traders
Bring an audience and trade on camera
Miami's 12 players were all creators trading funded wallets live. @andyslaps routed $1.95M and won Day 1; Trader Koala, Crypto Mommi, and Tushar all printed six-figure volume. They are the distribution layer: their streams and clips are what fill the signup funnel for everyone else. 14 prior Battle Trade competitors now sit on our creator roster.
Anonymous volume traders
No audience, deep size, the segment nobody else can reach
In the 7-day competition we track on NADO (May 25 to June 1), 2,162 participants registered and the top 100 wallets routed $696.7M, roughly 164x turnover on their equity. Only 10 of those top 100 wallets have a linked X account. The deep volume comes from anonymous wallets, not influencers. Competition leaderboards are one of the only acquisition channels that reaches this segment at all, because these traders show up for rank and prize, not content.
$696.7M top-100 volume, 7 days
164x equity turnover
$74.0M single top wallet
Skill players
Smaller accounts, real edge, the FTT profile
The same NADO contest's ROI track surfaced 15 traders between +349% and +675% over the week on smaller accounts. These are exactly the accounts an exchange wants as first-time traders: they deposit, they trade actively, and they stay for the next competition. On-site, this segment is why our activation rate climbed 35% → 43% → 71% across NYC, Denver, and DAS: the competition is the onboarding.
"Trading is the emerging esport of 2026."
@uhhdub · creator and Battle Trade competitor
The distribution behind the funnel
The case studies above were filled by three rails that already exist and are already producing. None of this needs to be built for an OKX campaign; it gets pointed at one.
Creator roster
95 creators, 9.4M combined reach, follower counts pulled live on the roster page. 14 are prior Battle Trade competitors, and each creator carries their own trackable affiliate code, so attribution is per-creator from day one.
View the live roster →
Street teams
On-the-ground teams in Virginia and California running IRL signup and activation: watch parties, campus and city events, the same playbook that converted 71% of signups at DAS. Virginia is an OKX US supported state, which is where our Bitcoin Pizza Day watch-party format anchors.
Live broadcast
Weekly livestream show with multi-cam production, the format proven at Miami's 5-channel co-stream. The last broadcast recap pulled 58K views. Every episode is a top-of-funnel event for the next competition.
What this means for the OKX pilot
- The FTT definition is strict on purpose: a KYC-verified OKX US account that places its first trade. Not a lead, not a signup. The 35% → 71% activation track record above is what makes a guaranteed floor of 125 FTTs a number we will put in writing.
- The funnel is the competition itself. Players compete on Battle Trade with zero friction, then convert to OKX to keep trading. The case studies show every stage of that funnel working live: signups, activation, sustained trading, on-camera proof.
- Volume follows the accounts. The same mechanics that printed $12.36M across two funded runs apply to traders who convert and keep trading on your venue, which is what the rev-share side of the pilot is priced on.
- Full pilot terms are in the companion doc: battle.fyi/partners/okx.html.