Challenge rules

A trading challenge on a simulated $10,000 Optix Paper account at real market prices. Entry is free, and no real money is at risk.

The challenge runs in seasons. Each season’s rules are fixed when it opens, and the Challenge tab shows the rules of the season you’re in. These are Season 0’s.

• You’re 18 or older.
• You live in the United States.
• You enter from your own Optix account. One entry per person.
• You have an invite code for the season, unless the season is open to every member.

The challenge is void where the law doesn’t allow it.

Start

$10,000Simulated. Free to enter.

Target

+8%Reach $10,800 to pass.

Max loss

8%Equity at or under $9,200 ends the run.

Daily loss

3%Down $300 from the day’s start ends the run.

Per trade

2%Up to $200 of defined risk: long calls and puts, debit spreads and butterflies, no same-day expiries.

To pass

20 tradesEach risking $50 or more, on 10 trading days or more. No day over 40% of the profit, a process score of 70 or more and at most 2 Blunders.

Who

US 18+US residents 18 or older, in the 50 states and DC. One account each.

Opening orders can be long calls and puts, debit spreads and butterflies on stocks and funds with listed options. Every order is checked against these rules before it’s placed:

• What an order can lose, plus its fees, is at most 2% of the starting balance ($200).
• Everything open on one stock can lose at most 2% of the starting balance ($200).
• Everything open together can lose at most what’s left above the max-loss floor.
• No same-day expiries: a contract expires the next calendar day or later.
• Each leg has open interest of 250 or more, and 25 or more contracts traded the session before.
• Each leg’s spread is at most 10% of its midpoint or $0.05, whichever is wider. An order with more than one leg has a spread of at most 15% of its midpoint.
• The stock trades at $5 or more.
• The quotes an order is checked against are at most 15 seconds old.
• Every order starts from a thesis with your chance on it, and the process score grades it.

Fees: $0.65 per contract on each leg, when it opens and when it closes. None at expiry.

An AI agent can prepare an order on a challenge account, but the order is placed only after you approve it. Automatic rules don’t run on challenge accounts.

Your equity is the account’s cash plus what its open positions would sell for at current quotes. It’s checked on every price mark, from 9:35 AM ET each session, after the opening quotes settle.

A run ends on a loss limit only when 2 marks in a row, spanning at least 60 seconds, are at or under it. On your run’s last mark, one is enough.

You pass the moment your equity reaches $10,800, held on 2 marks in a row or at a session’s close, and you also have:

• 20 or more counted trades, each opening a new position that can lose $50 or more
• trades on 10 or more trading days
• no single day with more than 40% of your profit
• a process score of 70 or more across your graded trades, with at most 2 Blunders

Passing makes you Funded for that season, and the Challenge tab says you passed. The challenge pays no money: the account, its balance and its profit are simulated.

Each run lasts 20 trading sessions of its own on the exchange calendar, counted from the session open when it starts (start after the close and the next session is the first). It ends when you pass, when its sessions run out without a pass, or on a loss limit.

A run ends on a loss limit when equity is at or under $9,200, 8% below the start, or when it falls $300 or more below the day’s starting equity.

After a breach, you can start one new attempt in the same season, 24 hours after the breach, with its own sessions. A season takes entries, and new attempts, only until its entries close.

Optix can also end a run that breaks the fair-play rules below.

• One person, one entry. Don’t enter from a second account, or trade someone else’s.
• Don’t coordinate trades with other entrants.
• Don’t take advantage of a price that is plainly wrong, a data error or a bug. Optix may correct or remove trades that did.
• Every order on your account is yours, including one an agent prepared and you approved.

Optix decides how these rules apply, and records every decision it makes about an entry.

The season’s standings show each entrant’s handle, status and results. The Privacy policy covers the rest.

A season’s rules don’t change once it opens. If something outside Optix’s control forces a change, such as a trading halt or a data source failing, the Challenge tab says what changed and why.