The leaderboard's "profit" is trading P&L, while the venue's subsidies are transfers, not trades — and never enter it. The consequence runs both ways: you systematically underrate subsidy-driven players and systematically overrate your own strategy.
| Trading P&L | Subsidies | |
|---|---|---|
| Form | spread and settlement payouts | transfers |
| In the "profit" field? | yes | no |
| Where to find it | the leaderboard endpoint | on-chain receipts |
| Timing | whenever things settle | batched at a fixed daily time |
A pure market-making wallet can have persistently negative trading P&L — it quotes tight to attract volume, and each individual trade loses slightly. Its income comes from rebates.
I took one such wallet apart in full (thirty hours, over twenty thousand shares):
| Component | Per share |
|---|---|
| Pure trading | −0.149¢ |
| Maker rebate | +0.248¢ |
| Net | positive |
On the leaderboard, that wallet looks like it is losing money. It is steadily profitable, and its entire approach is built on this basis gap.
Across 62 boards, 25 had paired average prices summing to more than $1.00 (the highest reaching 1.250). It was deliberately assembling sets at more than they are worth — a set only ever pays $1, so those trades were certain losses.
Why? Because it is not buying spread, it is buying volume — volume produces rebates, and the rebates exceed the spread it gives up. Until you see that, every one of its actions looks like a mistake.
| What you compute | What it may mean |
|---|---|
| "I made X this month" | possibly "the strategy lost and subsidies more than covered it" |
| "the strategy works" | possibly "the subsidy works" |
| "ten times the size, ten times the profit" | subsidy rates change and can go to zero; the strategy component stays negative |
This error is expensive because a subsidy is a product decision, not your skill. Rates, splits and eligible categories can all change — and when they do, your "working strategy" turns negative that day, and you may not even know what you had been relying on.
| Do | Note |
|---|---|
| Keep two ledgers | strategy P&L and subsidy income, never merged |
| Judge the strategy on the first only | a subsidy is income, not evidence of skill |
| Add them only for total return | fine for "how much did I make"; not for "does this work" |
| Query both when reading others | the leaderboard is half the picture; the other half is on-chain |
| Stress-test at zero subsidy | what remains is your strategy |
I built a line whose case for profitability leaned heavily on subsidies. Result: rebates received $0, net −$496.51.
The lesson is not only "the subsidy did not come". It is that I never validated the subsidy column on its own. The strategy ran forty-one hours, while validating the subsidy would have meant a few small orders and one day of waiting.
Basisthe ledger recorded the $0 and not the reason. So the kill file says "no cause recorded" rather than supplying a plausible one. Full account in the autopsy.
The leaderboard's "profit" is half the story; the other half is a set of on-chain transfers. Judging other people needs both. Judging your own strategy needs only the first. Counting subsidies as strategy skill means mistaking a product decision for your own ability.