IMC Prosperity 4
High expectations
After three successful editions of Prosperity as “the world’s most elaborate trading challenge” it was time to up our game. Knowing the impact of the previous editions, IMC set their most ambitious goals to date for the next one. We were dealing with high expectations, from both the client and the global student audience, to evolve the competition into a new stage, a new experience.
We took everything we learned building Prosperity 1 to 3 and identified the core elements that we would use as the foundation for Prosperity 4. We said goodbye to the tropical theme (and its beloved characters) and went discovering new frontiers, eventually deciding on a space themed approach. We designed new competition mechanics, new trading challenges, new features, new storylines, and new characters, bringing them together into a whole new universe for players to enjoy.
After months of hard work, we released the campaign for Prosperity 4 in march 2026. By the time the actual competition started, April 14 2026, 30,307 students from around the globe had signed up for Prosperity. For 16 days straight, competitive teams from 117 different countries tried to code and trade their way to the number one spot on the leaderboard, to be crowned IMC Trading Talent of 2026.
A seriously fun introduction to trading
Prosperity is an online trading simulation that gives students from around the world the opportunity to get familiar with Quant Finance and Trading, in a fun and engaging way. In teams of up to 5 members, players get introduced to real world market dynamics through algorithmic and manual trading challenges. They build a trading algorithm to trade foreign goods on a virtual market and face manual trading challenges along the way. Their submissions are evaluated against a realistic, digital market simulation and earns them in-game profit. Whichever team has generated the most profit at the end of the competition will be crowned IMC Trading Talent of 2026 and wins a $25,000 cash prize.
New and improved
By identifying the core mechanics that made Prosperity a success in the first place, we were able to construct a solid foundation to build upon. This also gave a lot of room to explore and implement completely new mechanics and features.
As part of this new direction, Prosperity 4 consisted of two phases; a 2 round qualifier and the 3 round finals. This way, the barrier to entry was lowered considerably, speaking to all students that are curious to learn, but don’t have any experience coding or trading.
We also introduced 6 completely new trading challenges, based on real life experiences of IMC traders and historical market developments.
In addition, Prosperity 4 gave players the opportunity to choose a digital advisor to consult during the trading rounds, badges to collect and show off (on and off platform), and side quests to participate in.
Combined, these new dynamics and features created a more approachable, immersive and enjoyable experience for players of all level of experience and ambition.
Competition & community
While teams battle it out on the Prosperity platform, they also engage in conversation, collaboration and the occasional banter on the dedicated Discord server. This digital hangout grew into an invaluable community of like-minded students from all over the world, sharing their strategies, progress, highs, lows, smiles and tears.
Eventually the community expanded beyond the borders of the Discord server, connecting on LinkedIn, sharing repos and write-ups on GitHub and organizing IRL get togethers.
Best one, so far…
Prosperity 4 drew in players from all around the world. With more than 30 thousand players from 117 countries and 1500 different universities competing for a honorable spot on the leaderboard, this was the most successful edition of Prosperity to date. Some ambitious students are already asking: “when will the next Prosperity kick off?”, eager to get straight back into the galaxy’s most elaborate trading challenge.
