Highest return wins. Everyone starts with the same balance, trades against the same live markets, and gets the same fill conditions: the same latency, the same slippage limit, the same maximum price impact. Those conditions are hashed into the season's ruleset and published before anybody enters, so they cannot be changed partway through without the change being visible.

Open positions are marked at the current price. A trader holding a winner is ahead of one holding cash, which they are, even before they sell.

If a season runs under broken conditions it does not count, and every entrant is refunded exactly what they paid with no house cut. The triggers are published in advance and measured rather than judged after the fact, and once results are on chain a season can never be voided.