DarwinIA is Darwinex's monthly seed capital allocation. It is divided into two programs: DarwinIA SILVER and DarwinIA GOLD.
DarwinIA has been created with the aim to incentivize responsible trading among our traders. We assign notional capital every month as a way of both incentivising providers to improve their strategies and train them for trading with AuM assigned to their DARWIN..
As opposed to other trading contests, in DarwinIA prizes are meant to be given to traders able to deliver consistent returns on the medium term.
DarwinIA is NOT an investment recommendation
Contents
A DARWIN would initially participate in DarwinIA SILVER and would ultimately participate in DarwinIA GOLD only after meeting certain return & drawdown requirements are met.
DarwinIA SILVER
Participation requirements
To participate in DarwinIA SILVER you have to fulfil the following conditions.
- Have a DARWIN created and open to investors*.
- Your trading account must have a minimum equity during the month of 1,000$ (if your account is based in a different currency, the equity will be calculated in USD with a conversion rate). However, the system will not exclude a DARWIN from SILVER unless the minimum equity is below 900$, so there is $100 margin to NOT be excluded.
This means that if, at any moment during the month, the equity of your trading account is below $900, it would be excluded from current month's participation. - Correlation with DARWINs from other users should be <0.95 and <0.5 from DARWINs from the same user. If the correlation between two or more DARWINs is >0.95 or >0.5, respectively, the DARWIN with a higher cumulative return during the previous 5 months and current month will participate while the other DARWIN(s) will be excluded**.
* DARWINs based in a IBKR account can still participate despite not being open to investors.
** Correlation between DARWINs at SILVER and DARWINs at GOLD will not be taken into account.
Rating
The final standing in DarwinIA SILVER is based on a proprietary rating algorithm, which is calculated based on 3 variables:
- Current calendar month return.
- Cumulative 5 Month calendar return prior to current calendar month.
- Maximum drawdown across the current month and preceding 5 calendar months.
The minimum rating necessary to receive allocation is 75, so by obtaining a rating of 75 or higher at the end of the month your allocation is guaranteed.
Allocations
The allocation received depends on the rating obtained and position in the ranking at the end of the month, as follows:
- The rating. There will be a minimum rating of 75 necessary to receive allocation. All DARWINs obtaining this minimum rating at the end of the month, will be assigned a minimum allocation of 30,000€.
- The final position in the ranking. For the top DARWINs in the ranking, there will be an increasing allocation, with a maximum allocation of 375,000€. You can check the actual allocation per position at DarwinIA SILVER rules.
Every allocation remains invested in the DARWIN for 3 months. It is therefore possible to have 3 simultaneous assignments in DarwinIA SILVER, if your DARWIN meets the minimum rating for receiving allocation during 3 consecutive months.
DarwinIA GOLD
Participation requirements
To participate in DarwinIA GOLD, only DARWINs who have a signal history in excess of 8 months and meet any of the following conditions will participate:
- 1-year return > 20% and Return/Drawdown > 2.5*
- 2-year return > 25% and Return/Drawdown > 2.5
- 3-year return > 30% and Return/Drawdown >2.5
- 4-year return > 35% and Return/Drawdown >2.5
- 5-year return > 40% and Return/Drawdown > 2.5
**Or since inception if DARWIN lifetime is shorter than 8 months.
Similar to DarwinIA SILVER requirements, correlation with other DARWINs should be <0.95. If the correlation between two or more DARWINs is >0.95, the DARWIN with a higher cumulative return during the previous 5 years will participate while the other DARWIN(s) would be excluded.
Allocations
Top 50 DARWINs in the ranking at the end of the month will receive an allocation. The minimum allocation is 50,000€ and the maximum is 500,000€, and it will be based on the ranking position at the end of the month. You may check the ranking here.
Ranking will only depend on the current month's return. Hence, the ranking will be ordered from DARWIN's with the highest monthly return, to DARWINs with the lowest.
The allocations will remain invested in the DARWIN for 6 months, unlike DarwinIA SILVER, where the allocation duration is 3 months.
Can a DARWIN be excluded from GOLD?
If a DARWIN no longer meets GOLD criteria described above, it will automatically revert to participating in DarwinIA SILVER the following month. Once required criteria are met again, the DARWIN would once again participate in DarwinIA GOLD the following month.
Performance fees
You will receive a 15% perfomance fee on the return achieved on each capital allocation taking into account a high-water mark criteria . The calculation for the payment of commissions is made on a quarterly basis, i.e. every 3 months since the first allocation date.
Migrated DARWINs
DARWINs participating in DarwinIA can be based on a trading account that has been migrated from a different broker. In those cases, there are some relevant aspects to take into account:
1. For DARWINs participating in DarwinIA SILVER, the rating will be based in the track-record generated exclusively after the DARWIN has been migrated. This is, the rating will not include any track-record previous to the migration.
2. We may include the track-record previous to the migration to analyze if it qualifies to participate in DarwinIA GOLD, depending on the trust we have in it and how replicable it is under Darwinex execution conditions*.
*We reserve the right to reverse it at any moment if we consider that the necessary conditions are not met.
DARWINS from both Darwinex and Darwinex Zero participate in DarwinIA SILVER & GOLD, so there will be DARWINs with a 3-letters ticker (Darwinex) and 4-letters (Zero). The ranking is updated every 4 hours and the final ranking every month is determined at market close on the last trading day of each calendar month.