Crypto Trading Contest With $10,000 Prize Turns Investing Into Esports

Eight traders competed at a New York boxing gym

They battled for a $10,000 prize and a decorative katana

Gen Z investing culture meets livestreaming

Spectator-style trading gains traction in crypto markets

Cryptocurrency trading is spreading as a spectator event staged like a boxing match, underscoring how finance is merging with internet-era entertainment, social media and livestreaming culture.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 15 that a live crypto trading competition was recently held at a boxing gym on Church Street in Lower Manhattan. Contestants bought and sold Bitcoin, Ether and Pengu, a penguin-themed memecoin, while competing for a $10,000 prize and a decorative Japanese sword.

The winner was James Parillo, a partner at a venture capital firm. He competed under the name "Velvet Milkman" and entered the ring wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "Legend." Parillo listened to Phish's "Tweezer Reprise" on headphones to shut out his rivals' reactions and the crowd noise. One participant known as Jadudu, described as being from South Korea, was seen slamming the table in frustration, but Parillo didn't hear it.

The format resembled esports. Eight participants each received $25,000 in simulated capital and traded in three 30-minute rounds. Rankings were based on profit and loss, with the bottom half eliminated after each round. Drones flew overhead, while spectators watched the trades and prediction-market betting from a balcony and nearby monitors.

Parillo's strategy was simple. He repeatedly bought and sold Bitcoin using 40x leverage. The Journal likened it to boxing's jab-jab-uppercut combination: simple, but highly dependent on timing. Parillo won all three rounds and generated about $4,400 in profit. Afterward, he said he had been intensely focused and felt relieved when it was over.

The event amounted to an experiment in turning trading into a sport. The host was social trading platform Legend, and Figment Capital, where Parillo works, owns a minority stake in the company. Even before competing, Parillo held the investment thesis that trading contests could become spectator sports. He said combining the internet, social media, livestreaming and finance feels natural for Gen Z.

Crypto is particularly suited to that format. It trades around the clock, is accessible globally, and perpetual futures with no expiration date allow for high leverage. That makes trading screens easy to consume like video games tracking price swings in real time. The Journal said such live trading events started as underground local gatherings and have grown into highly produced shows around the world.

The contestants' behavior added to the competitive feel. Trevor Aaron, a Brooklyn-based trader, took a maximum-leverage position in the Solana token and then played Doodle Jump so he wouldn't fixate on the price chart. When he returned to the trading screen, he was in first place. Kurt Gallo, a former esports player, traded perpetual futures tied to HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid. As he slipped down the rankings, he took on more risk and put a photo of Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan on his monitor to watch over the trade.

The atmosphere differed sharply from a traditional trading floor. Alcohol was served, and spectators debated the contestants' every move. Screens showed live odds from Polymarket, revealing who the crowd was backing. Around other monitors, people cheered and groaned as paper profits appeared and vanished in an instant.

Commentator Hamza Parvez Butt said it was fascinating to watch traders from a human perspective. Some wore headphones. Others seemed conscious of the cameras. One briefly fell asleep. The crowd focused especially on Jadudu, who was known for emotional reactions and pounding his keyboard. In the semifinal, a single trade knocked him from first place to fourth. As his chances of reaching the final faded, he buried his head in his hands.

The trend extends beyond one-off events and points to a broader shift in how finance is consumed. Earlier generations encountered markets through sober financial news and television pundits. Internet-native investors want trading to be more entertaining, more social and more immersive. Parillo said he knew it would not be fun unless he was trading himself, and the goal was to make the event interesting.

The open question is whether competitions like this can become a sustainable part of financial culture. The gains created and erased at the venue were based on simulated money, not real capital. The format also magnifies the effects of high leverage and short-term volatility. Spectator finance is succeeding in attracting younger investors, but it also highlights the risk that entertainment-driven investing may dull perceptions of risk.

The Journal said trading is increasingly becoming stage content as social trading platforms such as Legend, prediction markets such as Polymarket, and crypto infrastructure offering perpetual futures converge. The New York event showed how finance is moving beyond numbers and charts into a competitive format with spectators, commentary, odds and star participants.

Hwang Jung-soo, Hankyung.com reporter, hjs@hankyung.com