Getting Started

Who can participate and/or win in Prosperity?

While Prosperity is designed for university students, the platform is open to anyone to sign up and participate for learning purposes. Due to the high volume of participants, we are not actively monitoring participant criteria. However, eligibility for leaderboard ranking, prizes, and recognition is subject to the following conditions. Exceptions will not be granted.

Top 25 Teams must meet the following requirements:

Proof that they were enrolled at a university at the time of registration, and are at least 18 years of age, upon request.
Teams that include any participant who placed in the Top 10 of a previous edition of IMC Prosperity will be removed from the rankings.
If any member of a team fails to meet the eligibility requirements, the entire team may be disqualified at IMC's sole discretion.

Top 5 Teams and the Manual Trading Winner must additionally:

Make themselves available for a verification call with IMC to confirm their genuine and active participation in the challenge.

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Eligibility for prizes, and recognition is limited to participants resident in EMEA, North America, South America, India, Australia, or Hong Kong at the time of registration.
- Participants resident outside these regions may participate in the challenge and appear on the leaderboard, but are not eligible to receive prizes.
- In team settings, prizes are distributed equally among team members who meet the residency eligibility setting, granted the other requirements are met. This restriction is due to legal and compliance requirements that apply to awarding prizes in different countries. To ensure the competition is run in a consistent and compliant way, we have limited prize eligibility to these regions but understand a desire to form multinational teams may complicate this and our priority is to provide a beneficial learning environment for students. </aside>

The following are grounds for disqualification from Prosperity entirely:

Ineligible affiliation:
- Currently employed by IMC or any IMC affiliate;
  - has accepted an offer of employment with IMC or any IMC affiliate, regardless of whether such employment has commenced
  - individuals employed by competitors of IMC, or by any entity engaged in market making, high-frequency trading, proprietary trading, quantitative trading, trading desks of investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, or other financial institutions performing similar trading or investment activities; or
    
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    - If employment (including internships) at a competitor firm has not commenced at the moment of registration, the player is not subject to disqualification </aside>
  - affiliated with organisations or individuals who contributed to the development of the IMC Prosperity Global Trading Challenge are excluded from participation.
  - including current or accepted employment at IMC, its affiliates, individuals employed by competitor firms engaged in similar trading activities.
- Multiple team participation: a participant may not be a member of more than one team.
- Legal, reputational, or compliance concerns: including submission of false documentation, exploitation of platform bugs, plagiarism of another participant's code or algorithms, or any conduct that may violate applicable laws or harm IMC's reputation.

What is the Tutorial Round?

The Tutorial Round is available to teams immediately after signing up until Round 1 begins. You will receiving crucial information about the platform interface, on-board advisor selection, and the opportunity to engage in a practice algorithmic trading round. You can test your Python program as many times as you like and receive instant feedback on its performance. Make the most of your time in the simulator, because once you land on Intara, the time to practice is over and your real mission begins.

What is the signup deadline?

Your signup process must be completed before Round 1 begins on at 12:00 CEST (UTC+02:00) on April 14, 2026.

Can I participate if my university is not listed in the drop-down list during the sign-up process?

Yes, no problem. We try to keep a comprehensive list, but new players are joining from every corner of the globe. Simply select “Other” and continue on. This will not impact your ability to participate in Prosperity. Validation and other eligibility criteria will only be requested when the final leaderboard reveals the Top 25 teams. You may email [email protected] to request your university be added for future editions of Prosperity.

How can I connect with fellow players?

You can join our dedicated Prosperity Discord server.

How do I write a trading program?

There is elaborate documentation on the Writing an Algorithm in Python page. Check it out to see how to write a program. Still have questions? Our Discord server is a good place to ask questions.

What is the schedule for each round?

The round schedule is Round Schedule .