The Congress Purse

Article I · The Prize

DENEM Labs shall award the sum of fifty United States dollars ($50 USD) to the member holding the first position on the Congress leaderboard at the end of each weekly period, commencing from the fifth day of April 2026 and continuing through 30 September 2026.

Payment shall be disbursed within seven (7) days of each settlement, via a method mutually agreed upon between the winner and DENEM Labs, and subject in every case to the verification procedures set forth in Article IV.

The purse shall be awarded to any given natural person no more than once over the entirety of the program. Where the member holding the first position at settlement has already received the sum in a prior week, no purse shall be awarded for that week; the disbursement shall resume only at the next settlement at which first position is held by a member who has not yet been laureate.

Article II · Eligibility

• · The member must hold a verified Congress account with a valid email address.
• · The member must be of majority age in their jurisdiction of residence, or have guardian consent.
• · Employees of DENEM Labs and their immediate family are ineligible.
• · Only one (1) account per natural person is permitted; multi-accounting is strictly forbidden.

Article III · On the Use of Artificial Intelligence

The Congress concerns itself with the art of the prompt, of architecture, and of understanding. A member who submits to a large language model the text of a challenge and transcribes its reply is not an engineer of AI — only its scribe. Such conduct is prohibited.

In particular, the following acts render a submission invalid for prize consideration:

• · Feeding challenge text, in whole or paraphrased, to any generative model for the purpose of obtaining an answer.
• · Automating submission or navigation of the platform by any bot, scraper, or browser agent.
• · Sharing challenge content, hints, or answers with or from other members, whether directly or by publication.
• · Employing any technical exploit to observe another member's submissions or the answer key.

Article IV · Verification Before Award

Before any payment is disbursed, the standing champion shall submit to a brief oral defense. This shall take the form of a video conference of no more than fifteen (15) minutes, during which DENEM Labs may:

• · Verify the identity of the member.
• · Invite the member to explain, in their own words, their reasoning on two (2) solved challenges selected at random.
• · Pose brief follow-up questions on matters of AI engineering at the difficulty of the solves claimed.

Prior to any disbursement, the standing champion shall further furnish to DENEM Labs a valid government-issued identity document (passport, national identity card, or equivalent) bearing a photograph, together with such additional proof of identity as may be reasonably required to satisfy anti-fraud and applicable fiscal obligations. No sum shall be released until these documents have been received and approved.

A member who cannot articulate the substance of their own submissions, or who fails to provide the requisite identity documents, forfeits the prize for that settlement, and may be referred to Article V.

Article V · Sanction

Any violation of Articles II or III shall result in:

• · Immediate forfeiture of any pending prize.
• · Retroactive invalidation of the member's leaderboard standing.
• · Permanent disqualification from future prize consideration.
• · At the sole discretion of DENEM Labs, removal from the Congress.

Article VI · Discretion

All determinations concerning the prize — including, without limitation, questions of eligibility, verification, violation, and forfeiture — rest in the sole and final discretion of DENEM Labs. DENEM Labs reserves the right to modify, suspend, or terminate the prize at any time, for any reason, with reasonable notice posted to the Congress.