WEEX Hackathon Heats Up: AI Overtakes Humans in Round 2, Who Will Claim the 15,000 USDT?

After the first round of real-market trading battles, Team Human claimed the opening victory with a significant return advantage. Entering the second round, although the top ten on the individual return leaderboard are still entirely occupied by human traders, Team AI has already overtaken Team Human in terms of the team's overall average return.

As of 12:00 (UTC+8) on September 16, Team AI's average return leads Team Human by approximately 6.8 percentage points. Meanwhile, affected by the recent macroeconomic environment and crypto market volatility, the average returns of both Team AI and Team Human are currently in negative territory. As the competition continues, the scores between the two sides will keep shifting, and the final outcome remains far from certain.

This hackathon features five rounds in total, testing the strategy execution, risk management, and sustained trading capabilities of AI Agents and human traders through PnL% performance in a continuous real-market trading environment. As the competition enters its second round, the rivalry between AI and humans is beginning to show more nuanced changes than in the first round.

Round 1: Humans Defeat AI, Champion Trader Achieves 561.25% Return

AI Wars II consists of five rounds in total, running from September 7 to October 9, with one round held each Monday through Friday.

Participants can choose to join Team AI or Team Human, competing in real markets through AI Agents, API-automated trading, or manual trading, vying for each round's rankings and corresponding rewards based on PnL% performance. Team AI also has an exclusive $30,000 AI Elite Performance Award.

The first round took place from September 7 to 11. In the opening battle, Team Human defeated Team AI with a PnL% lead of approximately 7 percentage points, getting off to a winning start.

Looking at the individual return leaderboard, human traders demonstrated greater explosive potential. In the first round, the top 5 users on Team Human achieved returns of 561.25%, 348.07%, 343.54%, 330.88%, and 245.88% respectively; the top 5 on Team AI achieved returns of 22.97%, 8.9%, 8.89%, 7.89%, and 7% respectively.

From this result, the first round showed a fairly clear divergence: a small number of standout human traders achieved returns far exceeding those of AI participants, helping Team Human build an advantage in the opening round.

However, this does not mean AI trading strategies lack competitiveness. Short-term trading results are easily influenced by multiple factors including the real market environment, strategy type, position management, and trading frequency, and a single round's performance is not sufficient to represent long-term trading capability. WEEX designed the competition with five consecutive rounds precisely in the hope of observing the stability of AI and human trading strategies across different market environments over a longer competition period.

70% of the Prize Pool Goes to Team Human, First Place Takes Home 630 USDT

The main prize pool for the first round was 10,000 USDT.

According to the competition rules, the winning team receives 70% of that round's prize pool, amounting to 7,000 USDT; the losing team still receives 30% of the prize pool, amounting to 3,000 USDT. Within each camp, the top five participants by PnL% share 25% of their camp's prize pool, with ranks 1 through 5 receiving 9%, 5.5%, 4.5%, 3.25%, and 2.75% of their camp's prize pool respectively.

Based on Team Human's 7,000 USDT prize pool in the first round, the base ranking rewards for the top five Team Human participants by PnL% were: 630 USDT, 385 USDT, 315 USDT, 227.5 USDT, and 192.5 USDT. After Team AI received the 3,000 USDT prize pool, the base rewards for its top five participants were: 270 USDT, 165 USDT, 135 USDT, 97.5 USDT, and 82.5 USDT.

Of the remaining portion of each camp's prize pool, 15% is distributed to profitable users weighted by PnL%, and 60% is a participation reward, shared by all who take part. Therefore, the final reward does not depend entirely on PnL% ranking; continued participation, achieving positive returns, and completing competition tasks will all affect the actual rewards received.

Round 2: AI Fights Back, Currently Leading Humans by 6.8 Percentage Points

On September 14, AI Wars II officially kicked off its second round. As of 12:00 (UTC+8) on September 16, the individual return leaderboard is still dominated by human traders, with the top 10 all coming from Team Human.

Among them, the top 5 participants on Team Human achieved returns of 828.87%, 693.58%, 302.44%, 246.2%, and 239.92% respectively; while the top 5 on Team AI achieved returns of only 85.29%, 37.12%, 23.84%, 21.89%, and 6.21% respectively.

Looking solely at the individual leaderboard, human participants are still far ahead. But in terms of the team's overall average return, the situation has reversed. As of the aforementioned time, Team AI's average return has overtaken Team Human by approximately 6.8 percentage points. In other words, although the high-return participants are concentrated in Team Human, Team AI's participants have performed more evenly overall, with smaller return disparities among team members, so after calculating the overall average, Team AI has actually taken the lead.

This contrast is particularly instructive for AI traders: human traders can leverage unique judgment, proprietary strategies, or high-risk positions to pursue outsized short-term returns, but the return divergence among individual participants is also very pronounced; AI Agents, on the other hand, emphasize automated execution, rule-based decision-making, and strategy consistency, and their overall return performance does not depend on a handful of top performers.

Of course, the second round is not yet over, and whether Team AI can hold onto its lead to win this round still needs to be verified by the trading performance over the next 3 days.

From $10,000 to $30,000, Prize Pool Increases Each Round

The main prize pool for the first round was 10,000 USDT, rising to 15,000 USDT in the second round. According to the competition schedule, the main prize pool will increase with each round, with the third, fourth, and fifth rounds having main prize pools of 20,000 USDT, 25,000 USDT, and 30,000 USDT respectively, bringing the cumulative main prize pool across five rounds to 100,000 USDT.

As the competition rounds progress, the number of participants continues to grow, and the per-round prize pool rises in tandem. The rewards in the later stages are higher, further amplifying the competitive value.

The tiered, escalating prize pool design leaves room for all participants to keep competing for rewards. For those who have already participated in the first two rounds, subsequent rounds will still test the stability of their strategies and sustained trading capabilities; for those who have not yet participated, the remaining 3 rounds also offer extremely high participation value, and latecomers have the opportunity to capture more rewards.

Daily Check-in and Voting: Participate at Zero Cost to Share 300,000 USDT

In addition to directly participating in the trading showdown as part of Team AI or Team Human, users can also earn points through multiple channels and share in a task prize pool worth a total of 300,000 USDT:

• Daily check-in: Complete a check-in to earn 20 points.

• Daily likes: Like the participants you support, up to 3 likes per day, earning 10 points each time.

• Share the event: Share the WEEX hackathon event on social media to earn 50 points.

• Daily futures trading: Reach a daily futures trading volume of 5,000 USDT to earn 50 points; the larger the trading volume, the more points earned.

• Futures trading milestones: Reach a cumulative futures trading volume of 50,000 USDT to earn 100 points; the larger the cumulative trading volume, the more points earned.

In addition, users can use the points they earn to participate in event predictions, cheering for the AI or human team they favor. If the supported camp wins, they can earn even more points.

The points users accumulate can be redeemed for BTC, ETH, WXT, USDT bonuses, and VIP trial card rewards, with the prize pool worth a total of 300,000 USDT.

This is an important reward channel independent of the trading competition. For new users, even without participating in any trading, they can accumulate points simply through daily check-ins, likes, and shares, and redeem them for rewards.

The second round of AI Wars II is currently in full swing, with AI facing off against humans, and the outcome is yours to witness. Three more showdowns await your participation, along with a 600,000 USDT prize pool to share. Sign up now: https://www.weex.com/events/human-vs-ai-weex-hackathon