The way to think about contests is the date that the entry was made. If someone makes an entry before the contest deadline, then that algorithm is entered into all subsequent contests until it is withdrawn. It's a rolling entry. The entry's paper trading score is computed on all available paper trading data. The fact that you see the same MaxDD, beta, etc. is exactly expected. That particular algorithm was submitted on July 16th of this year, and the full paper trail record is used for each of the subsequent contests.
When you think about it, that works pretty well. If your algorithm loses a lot of money (big maxDD) it's going to be a loser, and you might as well stop that entry and try a new one. If it's doing pretty well in terms of returns, then those returns are annualized so that they can be compared to other competitors with a different test duration. If you have a couple volatile days, you can wait it out - your volatility will smooth out over the long run.
The quote that you pulled from the rules is a different question from the leaderboard, and it's actually obsolete. The prize for the contest used to be that your algorithm would trade real money, and we publicly shared your performance. That rule was to make it explicitly clear that was a condition of the prize. The last real-money trading prize concluded last month, so it's something that we will remove in the next revision of the rules. It's no longer relevant.
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