Two Chinese artificial intelligence systems — DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen 3 Max — have outperformed global competitors in a real-time cryptocurrency trading challenge, achieving remarkable gains in less than two weeks.
Highlights:
- DeepSeek AI posted a 126% profit, growing its initial $10,000 investment to $22,900.
- Qwen 3 Max from Alibaba secured a 108% return, lifting its balance to $20,850.
- OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro both saw portfolio losses of nearly 60%.
- The trading contest, called Alpha Arena, is organized by U.S. research company Nof1.
According to Nof1, Alpha Arena aims to evaluate how top AI models perform in real-world trading environments. Each model began with the same $10,000 starting capital and equal access to live market data while executing trades in popular digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE).
DeepSeek and Qwen Take the Lead
Since trading began on October 18, DeepSeek’s “Chat V3.1” model has maintained the top spot, showing exceptional adaptability to market volatility. Alibaba’s Qwen briefly overtook DeepSeek between October 24–26 but later slipped to second place.
Meanwhile, Western-developed systems lagged behind. GPT-5 recorded the steepest drop, while Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro also saw heavy losses. xAI’s Grok 4 managed a modest 14% gain, and Anthropic’s Claude 4.5 Sonnet ended up 23% higher.
Nof1 stated that Alpha Arena is designed to simulate “real-world benchmarks,” with the crypto markets providing an ideal testing ground due to their fast-moving and unpredictable nature.
Market Context
The contest coincides with a rebound in major cryptocurrencies — and from recent dips. DeepSeek and GPT-5 maintained diversified long positions across several coins, while Qwen focused primarily on Ether, which paid off during the rally.
