TradeOff Appoints Esports and Gaming Pioneer Mike Rufail as CEO

Fantasy Stock Trading Game Teaches and Rewards Next Generation of Top Traders

DALLAS, Sept. 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — TradeOff, the next-generation stock trading platform that seeks to find, train, and reward the best retail traders in the world, announced the hiring of gaming and esports expert Mike Rufail as CEO. The early-stage company is building an online, multiplayer stock and crypto trading game and merit-based social network that gamifies trading education for users.

There is no accessible entry point for learning how to trade stocks and crypto. TradeOff changes that.

Request an early access invitation to TradeOff at tradeoff.com.

TradeOff users can earn real money and rewards by competing in online contests similar to fantasy sports or fantasy sports betting, including free-to-enter and subscription-based tournaments with prize money. Daily contests, seasonal leagues, one-on-one challenges, and educational content will debut on the TradeOff platform this fall.

“Today, there is no accessible entry point for learning how to trade stocks and crypto without putting personal capital at risk, which can be intimidating and prohibitive,” said Rufail. “TradeOff is going to change how financial brands reach and connect with new audiences, borrowing the best elements of what made playing and streaming video games widely popular and give people opportunities to explore trading, learn, practice and compete in fun new ways with low-risk, high-reward potential.”

According to the Investopedia Affluent Millennial Investing Survey, only 37% of Millennials feel knowledgeable about investing, and a lack of confidence leads to a significantly lower likelihood to own stocks compared to other generations.

TradeOff will feature a real-time leaderboard where players can compare their skills against fellow users and follow the trades of top players. Building a community of users openly sharing in the game’s performance data is intentional and meant to help demystify complexity of the markets often cited as a barrier to confidence in trading. Top traders on the platform will be invited to a partnership program with TradeOff that offers opportunities for monetization.

“A universal truth in gaming is that upleveling your skills requires repetition. I saw this with countless pro gamers while managing championship-winning esports teams. We need to give the next generation of great traders the opportunity for repetition,” said Rufail.

In more than two decades as a leader in gaming, Rufail helped popularize global competitive esports, consulted on video game design and competition for Activision Blizzard (formerly $ATVI, sold to Microsoft [MSFT: NASDAQ] in 2023) and Epic Games, and consulted with NVIDIA (NVDA: NASDAQ) on esports strategy. He most recently served as chief gaming officer and co-owner of OpTic Gaming and chief executive officer of Envy Gaming, which he founded in 2007. Rufail oversaw the merger of two of the most valuable and most-winning esports organizations in the world prior to joining TradeOff.

Rufail, based in Dallas, Texas, will lead product design and manage teams focused on testing, corporate strategy, partnerships and marketing for TradeOff. He joins a leadership team that includes:

Fintech and gaming entrepreneur and global managing director of GG Poker Sarne Lightman.
Serial entrepreneur and investor Rob Kuck.
Technology and patents expert Ram Ramanathan, formerly of HP, Intel, and Wells Fargo.
Mark Helweg, an award-winning senior strategy developer who built trading indicators for large hedge funds and owns multiple patents for trading technologies.

“Mike’s passion as a self-taught trader paired with his roots in building communities around emerging forms of entertainment, social connection and competition make him the ideal leader for TradeOff,” said Lightman. “We believe TradeOff can be to stock trading what fantasy sports, mobile betting and online poker were to sports and gaming: an invitation to new audiences to participate and emotionally invest in and learn about the game.”

About TradeOff

TradeOff Financial Corp. does not provide financial advice. All competitions are governed by applicable sweepstakes and game of skill law. For more information, visit tradeoff.com.

Press Contact:

Greg Miller

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