Hi everyone,

I’ve been active on Codeforces for three years now, and becoming a Master in December 2024 was one of the happiest moments of my life. I love competitive programming so much that I kept practicing every contest—but lately, I’ve noticed a troubling trend: cheating has become so common that even Div 1 contests don’t feel safe anymore.

Ironically, my own performance was improving, but my rating stayed the same—or even dropped. By the end of May, I had fallen below 2000, and that really hit me hard. After that, I stopped participating in live contests and switched to virtuals—but honestly, it’s just not the same fun when the contest is already over.

I’ll keep solving problems off-contest, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever return to live competitions. This journey has been amazing, though, and I want to say thank you to Codeforces and to everyone who inspired me along the way.

Goodbye

Note: This post was translated from Chinese to English using ChatGPT, as I don’t speak English fluently.