re: % vs. absolute gains.
It's the old question: who is the "better" trader? The guy who made a profit of 200% over some time span, but is trading with trivial amounts, or the one who manages to squeeze out a meager, say, 50% over the same time, but did so with a much bigger position.
In "real life", cost of trading factors in heavily, so the two types are sort of incomparable: if trader (a) manages to sustain those huge profits on his small position long enough, he will eventually get to the size of trader (b), in which case they become comparable.
Meh, long story for what I actually want to say: since this is a zero trading cost game (which is fine, it just means it rewards trading often slightly more than real life), and you can trade your (virtual) position identically whether it's 1 BTC or 1000, I'm actually thinking the default order should be percentage gain anyway. (and, no, doesn't make a difference for me personally. I won't be among the first 10 in either case
)
(EDIT) wait... how about:
(current position, USD value - starting position, USD value) / starting position, USD value = relative gains
(current date - starting date of player) in days = playing time
(relative gains / playing time)*365 = annualized relative gains of player <= default sorting order
Someone look over it to see if I made a mistake, bit of a brain fog day....nevermind, it's BS
(EDIT 2) Top 20 if ordered by relative gains (which also happens to be the set of all players with a USD profit currently)