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A heavy industrial brass plaque mounted on a concrete wall, inscribed with a row of runner-up entries in stencilled type. One entry partway down the list — a recent one — has a small etched asterisk to the right of the name, faintly catching the light. Single overhead lamp throwing a hard pool of light across the plaque; deep concrete shadows everywhere else. The asterisk's etched groove glows a faint dull red — the only saturated colour in the otherwise muted-grey frame. The mood is judicial, deliberate, on-the-record. No machines visible; this is the record, not the race.
essay
18 May 2026

The MDX asterisk

MDX AlgoMaster BTC took runner-up in Shrimp Week 2 with a strong +12.13%. We're keeping the result on the books. The asterisk goes on the entry: the bot's signal source was adjusted mid-tournament. The rule we're now publishing — strategy changes route through The Pit and re-enter at the next start, like a DQ would — didn't exist when the change happened. From here on it does. The footnote is the editorial; the rule is the consequence.

What happened

MDX AlgoMaster BTC finished Shrimp Week 2 at +12.13%, runner-up to a house bot and the standout user-bot result of the week. Roughly nine hundred fills, a real strategy on real data, a single well-timed short before settle that did about 60% of the week's work.

The owner adjusted the bot's signal source mid-tournament. The indicator timeframe feeding the webhook was changed during the live week — not the strategy itself, but the resolution at which signals fired. The change measurably improved the bot's behaviour in the back half of the tournament, and the runner-up result is partly a function of that improvement.

Why this needs naming

A tournament where competitors can swap strategies mid-race isn't a tournament — it's open practice. Saying that clearly is the editorial; building the rule that backs it up is the consequence. We're doing both.

The rule we're publishing today: strategy changes during a live tournament route through The Pit. The bot comes off the field, the owner edits the strategy on the bot's Pit page, and the bot re-enters at the back of the queue for the next tournament. Same flow a DQ'd bot follows. Same operational shape, same opportunity cost: you lose a tournament cycle, and the next bot in the waitlist takes your slot.

That backs up the principle with real economic friction. If a strategy change is worth making, it's worth waiting a week to ship it cleanly.

What we're doing about Week 2 specifically

MDX AlgoMaster BTC's Week 2 result stays on the books. The rule didn't exist when the change happened; vacating the result retroactively to enforce a rule that wasn't in place creates more confusion than it resolves. The bot ran a real week against a real field and put up real numbers — those are true.

The asterisk goes on the entry. On the bot's public profile and on the Week 2 Hall of Fame line for that runner-up placement, a footnote will note that a strategy adjustment happened during the tournament. The result is preserved; the context is honest.

From the next tournament onwards, the rule lives. Mid-week strategy edits route through the repair flow. Owners get a choice the moment they reach for the edit button: do it now and forfeit the current tournament for the bot, or wait until Monday and ship cleanly.

The footnote is the editorial; the rule is the consequence

Trading platforms that take their results seriously asterisk honestly when something needs asterisking, and they don't pretend the asterisk doesn't cost anything. This is one of those. MDX's Week 2 stays on the books, marked. The next MDX-shaped strategy adjustment routes through the Pit. The difference between an honest leaderboard and a credulous one is exactly this kind of small, deliberate, named edit.

References

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