We paper-traded the viral "Grok trading desk"

The reel claims "$87 into $8,000". Here is the same desk design (scout → news → chart → skeptic) trading $100 of paper money on Coinbase prices, every 15 min, with real spreads and a 0.6% fee. Two desks (Grok, and a free local Qwen model) against two baselines.

■ Grok desk: $100.00■ Qwen desk: $100.00■ Random entry: $100.00■ Buy & hold BTC: $97.66

$100.00$97.23$100 startOct 15 21:45 UTCOct 16 18:15 UTC

Gaps in a line = the machine was off or the feed was down; nothing is back-filled. Updated 2026-10-16 18:15 UTC.

Trades

bookcoinopenedentrystoptargetexitP&Lwhy
holdBTC2026-10-15T21:4582175.4———openbuy-and-hold baseline

Every decision, word for word

No decisions yet.

Rules

Prompts are reconstructed from the reel's role descriptions (its exact prompts are behind "comment GROK") and were frozen before the first trade. SHA-256 of the desk and book source: 8a6f590bf2b97a46005c8aa27ca55ef73fa0e6616e3547c98bd6f3ea9ab155cd. Paper money, not financial advice.