The Leap Draws More Than 5,700 Participants in Africa
Capital.com is using a regional TradingView paper-trading competition to put its brand in front of thousands of African traders, extending an expansion push that has already included new regulatory licences in Kenya and South Africa this year.
The Africa edition of TradingView’s The Leap competition, sponsored by Capital.com, had attracted more than 5,700 participants by September 25. Registration closes at 08:00 UTC on September 25, while trading continues until October 2.
The contest gives each participant $100,000 in virtual funds rather than requiring real-money trading. Entrants compete on realized profit and loss, with the 60 highest-ranked participants eligible for prizes.
The first-place prize is $3,000, followed by $2,000 for second place and $1,500 for third. Traders finishing fourth through tenth receive $500 each, while places 11 through 60 receive a one-month TradingView subscription. The total cash prize pool is $10,000.
Participants can paper trade Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, EUR/USD, AUD/USD, USD/ZAR, gold, silver, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. At least three days of trading are required to qualify.
The campaign is notable because it moves customer acquisition away from the traditional broker promotion built around deposits, trading bonuses or reduced fees. Instead, Capital.com is positioning itself inside TradingView’s existing trader ecosystem while allowing potential customers to interact with markets without first putting real capital at risk.
That approach sits alongside increasingly aggressive broker customer-acquisition strategies, as retail trading firms compete not only on spreads and platforms but also on educational content, communities, tools and brand visibility.
Campaign Targets Dozens of African Markets
The official rules define a wide African footprint for the competition.
Eligible territories include Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Mauritius, Tunisia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and dozens of other African jurisdictions.
However, competition eligibility should not be confused with eligibility to open a live Capital.com trading account.
The rules specifically state that instruments available in the competition are provided for simulation purposes and may not reflect the products available through a sponsor account. Product availability can vary depending on regulation and jurisdiction.
That distinction makes The Leap broader than a simple account-opening campaign. Capital.com can expose its brand and trading interface to potential users in markets where its eventual commercial relationship may differ depending on local regulation.
The model is particularly relevant in Africa, where international brokers frequently face a fragmented regulatory landscape rather than one licence covering the continent. Pepperstone’s expansion across Africa, for example, has highlighted the same challenge: building a continental brand while regulatory permissions remain country-specific.
Capital.com Has Been Building a Local Regulatory Base
The TradingView campaign comes after Capital.com made two significant regulatory moves in Africa during 2026.
In January, the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya licensed CC Kenya Securities Ltd, trading as Capital.com, as a Dealing Online Foreign Exchange Broker under licence number 244.
The authorization allows Capital.com to provide regulated online forex and trading services in Kenya, with local governance, compliance oversight and client-support requirements.
Capital.com then announced dual approval from South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority in June. Capital.com South Africa was authorized as both an Over-the-Counter Derivatives Provider and a Category 1 Financial Services Provider.
The company said the approvals establish a framework for providing CFDs across more than 5,000 markets, including equities, commodities, indices, forex and crypto CFDs, subject to South African requirements.
Interestingly, South Africa is not included in the current TradingView competition’s list of eligible territories despite Capital.com’s recent regulatory approval there. The competition rules do not explain that omission, so it should not be interpreted as evidence about the status of Capital.com’s South African brokerage business.
The wider point is that broker expansion increasingly depends on matching marketing activity with the correct local entity. The issue becomes especially important when a brand operates through multiple jurisdictions, as seen when broker regulatory footprints shift between markets.
TradingView Gives Capital.com Access to Traders Before They Pick a Broker
The mechanics of the competition also show why TradingView has become strategically valuable to retail brokers.
Participants do not need to begin inside Capital.com’s own trading application. They enter through TradingView, receive a dedicated The Leap paper-trading account and trade using TradingView charts.
That puts Capital.com in front of traders at an earlier stage of the customer journey: while they are researching markets, testing strategies and deciding which tools and brokers they want to use.
Capital.com already supports account connectivity through TradingView, allowing eligible clients to use the charting platform as a trading interface. The competition extends that relationship into marketing and discovery.
It also gives the broker a softer entry point than directly promoting leveraged CFDs. Regulators have increasingly scrutinized how trading platforms use incentives and frictionless onboarding to attract retail customers. Australia’s regulator, for example, has warned about trading incentives and complex retail products where promotions may distract investors from underlying risks.
A paper-trading contest avoids real trading losses during the competition itself, although it can still introduce participants to products and markets that may later be traded with leverage through a broker.
Analysis: The Competition Is Really a Customer Funnel Without the Deposit
The interesting thing about The Leap is that it removes the hardest part of broker marketing: asking a new trader for money immediately.
Traditional CFD acquisition funnels often move quickly from advertisement to registration, verification, deposit and first trade.
That is a lot of friction.
Capital.com and TradingView are effectively reversing the order.
First, let traders compete. Let them use familiar charts. Give them virtual capital, a leaderboard and the possibility of winning cash. The broker brand sits inside that experience before the participant has to make a decision about opening or funding a real trading account.
That matters because TradingView already sits close to the point where retail traders make decisions. Users arrive to examine charts, publish ideas, follow other traders and monitor markets. Broker integrations then turn that analytical environment into a potential distribution channel.
It is similar in principle to content-led acquisition, where brokers try to reach customers while they are comparing platforms rather than after they have already chosen one. The recent push into broker-comparison content by smaller competitors shows how valuable that earlier stage of the decision process has become.
Africa Is Becoming a More Deliberate Broker Battleground
The geographic targeting is even more important than the competition format.
Capital.com is not running one generic global leaderboard. TradingView created separate Capital.com editions for Africa, Asia and Latin America, each with its own participants and prize pool.
That segmentation suggests a more deliberate approach to regional customer acquisition.
Africa has long attracted offshore FX and CFD brokers, but the competitive structure is changing. Local licensing is becoming more important, sophisticated platforms are increasingly available, and large international brokers are building dedicated regional management and compliance operations.
Capital.com’s Kenya and South Africa approvals fit that direction. So does Pepperstone appointing dedicated African leadership. Brokers that previously treated the continent as part of a generic international business are increasingly approaching major African markets individually.
That can create tension between expansion and regulatory complexity. A broker may have a strong brand across the continent while the legal entity serving a customer depends heavily on where that person lives. The same issue is visible elsewhere in retail trading, where an established brand can operate under different investor protections and product rules depending on the licence involved. AvaTrade’s multi-entity structure is one example of why the underlying regulated company matters alongside the consumer-facing name.
The Real Measure Will Come After the Leaderboard Closes
More than 5,700 participants makes the Africa competition a meaningful engagement campaign, but participation alone does not show how many users eventually become Capital.com customers.
That conversion is the number the public cannot see.
The contest can generate brand exposure, familiarize traders with Capital.com instruments and create a direct association between the broker and TradingView. But the commercial value depends on whether those participants later move from paper trading into funded accounts where Capital.com is legally able to serve them.
That is why the campaign is worth watching beyond October 2.
If this model works, more brokers may shift acquisition spending toward simulated competitions, educational environments and platform partnerships rather than relying primarily on deposit bonuses and conventional advertising.
For Capital.com, the timing is particularly useful. The company spent the first half of 2026 building regulatory infrastructure in two important African markets. The TradingView competition now gives it a way to build recognition across a much wider regional audience.
The regulatory licences establish where Capital.com can operate. The competition tests something different: how effectively it can turn a global charting platform into an African customer-acquisition channel.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.