The Deribit SignalPlus trading competition ran from November 17 to December 22, 2025, offering a $450,000 USDC prize pool, the largest in the two companies' history of joint competitions. Open to all Deribit retail users trading through SignalPlus, the space-themed event combined crypto options and futures trading with leaderboard rankings, team formation, and a separate high-stakes live trading arena.
How the Deribit SignalPlus Trading Competition Was Structured
Registration opened November 10 and ran through December 22, with the competition period itself spanning November 17 to December 22, 2025. Traders who registered by November 19 received three free Deribit options contracts across BTC, ETH, and SOL. The competition was open to individual traders as well as teams. Participants could rank up on leaderboards or complete quests to earn weekly prizes throughout the six-week window.
Prizes Beyond the Cash Pool
Alongside the $450,000 USDC prize pool, participants had a chance to win a range of physical prizes tied to the event's space theme, including a Unitree R1 Humanoid Robot, a World Trip Prize, a Bayliner Deck Boat, a DJI drone, a LEGO Millennium Falcon set, and an Apple Vision Pro. Combining a large cash pool with high-visibility physical prizes is a common strategy for maximizing both participation and social media attention around a trading competition.
The Perpetual Battlefield: A Separate High-Stakes Arena
A standout feature of the competition was the Perpetual Battlefield, a live trading arena where participants competed for a share of up to $30,000 USDC under an unusual risk structure. Losses incurred during matches were covered for participants, while any profits generated were kept entirely by the trader. The last trader standing in the arena earned the title "King of Perpetuals." This cost-covered, unlimited-profit format effectively let participants trade with house-backed downside protection, a distinct structure from the main leaderboard competition.
What Deribit and SignalPlus Said About the Event
Luuk Strijers, CEO of Deribit, described the competition as bringing record-breaking rewards and out-of-this-world challenges to the trading community. He framed it as a celebration of pushing new frontiers. SignalPlus separately emphasized its role in providing the underlying trading infrastructure that powered the event's execution.
The Technology Behind the Competition
SignalPlus offers an advanced trading dashboard integrating options, futures, and spot markets, with tools for risk assessment, scenario modeling, multi-leg order execution, and automated delta hedging across varying market conditions. The platform also provides real-time trade notifications through Telegram, giving participants a way to react quickly to fast-moving markets during the competition window.
Deribit's Position in the Derivatives Market
Deribit operates as a centralized, institutional-grade crypto derivatives exchange offering low-latency execution, robust risk-management systems, and liquidity supplied by a network of elite market makers. The exchange handles a significant majority of global crypto options trading volume and follows proof-of-assets and liabilities protocols. That gives the competition credibility as more than a marketing-only promotional event.
Large structured trading competitions like this one echo the same community-engagement strategy seen in Aster's Stage 4 Airdrop and Double Harvest trading competition. Both use competitive incentives to drive platform engagement during a defined window.
Glossary
- Perpetual futures: Derivative contracts allowing traders to speculate on an asset's price with leverage and no fixed expiry date.
- Delta hedging: A risk-management strategy that offsets an options position's directional exposure by trading the underlying asset.
- Multi-leg order: A single trading instruction combining multiple individual option or futures contracts to construct a specific risk-reward profile.
Disclaimer
This write-up is informational in nature and does not serve as financial or investment advice. Options and futures trading with leverage carries substantial risk of loss. Confirm current competition terms and dates directly through official Deribit and SignalPlus announcements.
