This is a running timeline of the prop firm news that mattered, organized by month with the most recent developments at the top. It covers both the wider industry, regulation, platforms, closures, consolidation, and individual firm news such as launches, rule changes, and funding moves. The focus is on the events that actually shaped the proprietary trading landscape, particularly the fast-growing retail “challenge” sector.
The timeline below runs from 2026 back through 2023, the years the modern retail prop firm boom collided with its first major reckonings, consolidated, and began to mature into a more regulated industry. It is updated as the year progresses, so the most recent months reflect developments through mid-2026.
Prop Firm News June 2026
ATFX Suspends Its Prop Trading Operations
On 6 June 2026, ATFX paused the operations of its prop trading unit, ATFunded, announcing a “full review of the business” less than two years after launching the offering. The broker framed the suspension as a chance to evaluate models that better align trader success with a sustainable business, echoing a question that had dogged the whole sector since the boom. The move showed that even well-resourced, broker-backed prop operations were still reassessing whether the challenge model worked for them.
Prop Firm News May 2026
Kraken Launches a Funded Trading Program, Bringing Prop to Crypto
In May 2026, crypto exchange Kraken rolled out a funded trading program built on its 2025 acquisition of Breakout, letting qualified traders access up to $200,000 in notional capital, keep up to 90% of profits, and trade across 50-plus crypto pairs. The launch marked one of the most prominent moves yet to bring the prop trading model into the crypto mainstream, with a major regulated exchange putting its name behind funded accounts. Observers framed it as a potential normalizing moment for prop trading across the crypto industry.
US Prop Firms Begin Moving Inside the CFTC Perimeter
On 21 May 2026, attention turned to a notable regulatory shift: a wave of US-based prop firms moving to operate under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Tradeify launched a CFTC-regulated introducing broker, Topstep registered as a Swap Firm, and MyFundedFutures signaled plans to become an introducing broker. After years in which prop trading sat almost entirely outside formal regulation, the move suggested some leading US firms now saw regulatory standing as either an opportunity or a survival strategy.
Prop Firm News April 2026
The Industry Weighs Who Survives the Shakeout
By spring 2026, the prop sector’s multi-year shakeout had become a defining lens for the industry, with analysts openly assessing which firms were positioned to survive. Trust erosion, retroactive rule changes, declining review scores, and the steady drumbeat of closures had made durability and credibility the central competitive questions. The firms most likely to last were those that paid reliably, communicated clearly, and avoided the rule changes that had sunk weaker rivals.
Prop Firm News March 2026
Crypto Prop Payouts Surge as the Niche Matures
Data emerging in early 2026 showed how rapidly crypto-focused prop trading had grown, with payouts tracked on public blockchains across the ten largest firms roughly doubling year over year, reaching about $115 million in the first quarter of 2026 from $55.3 million a year earlier. The figures signaled that crypto prop trading had moved from a fringe experiment toward a substantial segment of the industry. Growth had cooled somewhat since December, but the scale of the increase underscored crypto’s rising role in the funded-trading world.
Prop Firm News February 2026
Platform Reliability Becomes a Flashpoint as Outages Hit Major Firms
In early 2026, platform stability emerged as a growing source of friction between traders and firms, with episodes of repeated outages drawing public anger and forcing CEOs to set deadlines for fixes. The disputes highlighted how dependent the funded-trading experience was on reliable technology, and how quickly trust could erode when execution failed. The reliability question dovetailed with the broader 2026 theme of prop firms being judged on operational soundness rather than headline offers.
Prop Firm News January 2026
FundingTicks Winds Down After Rule Changes and Trust Erosion
In January 2026, futures prop firm FundingTicks began winding down its operations, following profit cuts, trading limits, and retroactive rule changes that had triggered a backlash and a slide in its Trustpilot ratings. The wind-down became an early-year emblem of how quickly trust erosion could prove fatal in a sector where credibility was everything. It set the tone for a year in which the “great prop firm shakeout” continued to separate durable firms from those that had alienated their traders.
The Industry Enters 2026 Focused on Survival and Credibility
Prop trading began 2026 as a consolidated, more mature industry still working through a years-long shakeout. The aggressive, lightly regulated growth of the boom had given way to a landscape defined by trust, platform reliability, regulatory positioning, and the blurring line between prop firms and brokers. With crypto prop trading rising, some US firms moving toward CFTC oversight, and weaker firms still folding, the year shaped up as a test of which businesses could endure.
Prop Firm News December 2025
FTMO Closes Its $250 Million Acquisition of OANDA
On 1 December 2025, FTMO completed its landmark acquisition of OANDA, the well-established and regulated forex and CFD broker, closing a deal it had agreed earlier in the year. The Czech prop firm funded the purchase through a $250 million credit line led by a group of Czech banks including UniCredit, and OANDA’s founders-turned-owners structure put FTMO’s Otakar Suffner and Marek Vasicek at the head of a combined prop-and-broker group. The close capped a defining 2025 storyline: the most prominent prop firm in the world acquiring one of retail trading’s most respected regulated brokerages.
The Year Ends with Props Reshaped as Hybrid Broker-Prop Businesses
By the close of 2025, the dominant theme of the year was clear: leading prop firms were no longer content to remain pure evaluation businesses and were moving into regulated brokerage. FTMO’s OANDA deal was the headline example, but the founders of The5ers had backed a CySEC-licensed broker, FundedNext was pursuing brokerage licenses across multiple jurisdictions, and many firms acquired offshore licenses largely to secure their own MetaTrader access. The “prop firm” and “broker” categories, once distinct, were blurring into a single, more regulated industry.
Prop Firm News November 2025
Prop Firms Race to Become Brokers
Through the autumn of 2025, the push by prop firms into the brokerage business accelerated. After years in which brokers had been the ones launching prop arms, the flow reversed, with prop firms acquiring or building regulated brokerage operations to control their own platform access and diversify their revenue. Many firms pursued offshore licenses primarily to obtain their own MetaTrader licenses rather than the grey-label arrangements that had proved so fragile during the 2024 crackdown. The structural lesson of the MetaTrader crisis, never again depend on someone else for platform access, was reshaping the whole industry.
Prop Firm News October 2025
My Forex Funds Hints at a Comeback After Beating the CFTC
On 6 October 2025, My Forex Funds signaled a potential return, months after a US court threw out the CFTC’s case against it. Founder Murtuza Kazmi maintained that the firm would have prevailed regardless of the regulator’s misconduct, and the prospect of one of the sector’s most infamous names returning underscored how dramatically the case had reversed. What had begun in 2023 as the regulator forcing the largest retail forex prop firm offline had, by late 2025, become a cautionary tale about overreach in enforcement.
Prop Firm News September 2025
Prop Firms Consolidate Their US Re-Entry
By early autumn 2025, the return of major prop firms to the US market that had begun earlier in the year was settling into a more permanent footing. Firms that had retreated during the 2024 MetaQuotes crackdown, including FTMO, The5ers, and FundedNext, had rebuilt US access through new platforms and broker relationships. The episode marked a full reversal from the prior year’s exodus, with the size and demand of the US retail market proving too significant for the leading firms to abandon.
Prop Firm News August 2025
Futures Prop Trading Becomes the Battleground for the US Market
Through the summer of 2025, futures-focused prop trading drew growing attention as the most viable route into the US market, given the regulatory clarity futures enjoyed compared with the CFD model. Established futures leaders such as Topstep, Apex, and MyFundedFutures held the space, but CFD-oriented firms increasingly eyed it, with FundedNext entering and The5ers expected to launch a futures platform. The dynamic set up a competitive contest between the established futures firms and the forex-bred newcomers trying to break in.
Prop Firm News July 2025
The Industry Reorients Around Regulation and Platform Independence
By mid-2025, the prop sector had been reshaped by the twin shocks of the 2024 platform crackdown and the regulatory drama of the My Forex Funds case. Surviving firms prioritized platform independence, regulatory standing, and financial durability over the aggressive, price-led growth that had defined the boom years. The cohort that remained was smaller, better capitalized, and far more focused on operating like sustainable financial businesses than the crowded field of 2023.
Prop Firm News June 2025
Prop Firms Pursue Brokerage Licenses to Secure Platform Access
Around mid-2025, a wave of prop firms moved to obtain offshore brokerage licenses, in most cases to secure their own MetaTrader licenses rather than to run full brokerage operations. The strategy was a direct response to the 2024 crackdown, in which firms relying on grey-labeled MetaTrader access through third-party brokers had been abruptly cut off. By bringing licensing in-house, firms aimed to insulate themselves from a repeat of that disruption.
Prop Firm News May 2025
CFTC Places Staff on Administrative Leave Over My Forex Funds Misconduct
On 7 May 2025, the My Forex Funds case took a stunning turn when the CFTC placed five staff members, four lawyers and one investigator, on administrative leave amid allegations of misconduct in the agency’s handling of the case. The move was an extraordinary admission of problems within the enforcement action that had forced one of the world’s largest prop firms offline in 2023. It set the stage for the case’s collapse just days later.
US Court Throws Out the CFTC’s My Forex Funds Lawsuit
On 14 May 2025, a US court dismissed the CFTC’s complaint against My Forex Funds, after the case’s special master recommended dismissal and sanctions against the regulator over its misconduct. The dismissal was a significant blow to the CFTC and a dramatic vindication for a firm the agency had accused of large-scale fraud less than two years earlier. The outcome reverberated across the prop industry, which had watched the case as a bellwether for how US authorities might regulate the sector.
Prop Firm News April 2025
Prop Firms Begin Returning to the US Market
Through the spring of 2025, major prop firms that had pulled out of the US during the 2024 MetaQuotes crackdown began re-entering the market. The size of the US retail trading market and persistent demand made it too important to ignore, and firms rebuilt access through new platforms and broker partnerships. FTMO’s emerging tie-up with OANDA positioned it, in time, to become the only firm able to offer MetaTrader 5 to US traders again, a notable reversal of the prior year’s platform-driven exodus.
Prop Firm News March 2025
The Sector Stabilizes After the 2024 Shakeout
By early 2025, the prop trading industry had emerged from the brutal consolidation of 2024 leaner and more cautious. With dozens of firms having closed the previous year, the survivors competed on reliability, platform resilience, and trust rather than the rock-bottom challenge pricing of the boom. The frantic instability of 2024 gave way to a steadier, if smaller, industry focused on durability.
Prop Firm News February 2025
FTMO Agrees to Acquire OANDA in a Landmark Prop-to-Broker Deal
In February 2025, FTMO announced it had agreed to acquire OANDA, one of the most popular and well-regulated forex and CFD brokers, a striking move by a prop firm into established, regulated brokerage. The deal, which would later close in December 2025, signaled the start of a year in which the lines between prop firms and brokers steadily blurred. Coming less than a year after the MetaQuotes crackdown had exposed the dangers of depending on third-party platform access, the acquisition gave FTMO a path to controlling its own regulated infrastructure.
Prop Firm News January 2025
The Industry Enters 2025 Smaller, Warier, and Consolidating
Prop trading began 2025 in a very different place than it had a year earlier. The 2024 MetaQuotes crackdown and the wave of 50-plus confirmed closures had thinned the field dramatically, leaving a smaller group of better-capitalized firms that had diversified their platforms and tightened their operations. The mood was cautious and consolidation-minded, setting up a year defined by US re-entry, the move into regulated brokerage, and the resolution of the My Forex Funds saga.
Prop Firm News December 2024
A Brutal Year of Closures Draws to a Close
December capped a year of extraordinary attrition in the retail prop trading sector. Finance Magnates Intelligence later estimated that somewhere between 80 and 100 proprietary trading firms disappeared from the market over the course of 2024, with the firm tracking more than 50 confirmed closures by name. The combination of the MetaTrader cutoff, intense price competition, thin margins, and shaken trader confidence proved fatal for a large share of the firms that had rushed into the space during the boom. The industry that entered 2024 riding a wave left it dramatically consolidated.
Smart Prop Trader Joins the Closure Wave
On 28 November, heading into December, Smart Prop Trader announced it would cease operations on 29 December 2024, having already stopped onboarding new traders. The firm became one of the more visible names in a long list of 2024 shutdowns, and its wind-down underscored that even established, actively marketed firms were not immune. The closure reflected how quickly the economics of the challenge model had deteriorated for many operators by year-end.
Prop Firm News November 2024
The Closure Count Mounts as Firms Keep Folding
By November, the steady drumbeat of prop firm shutdowns had become the defining feature of the year. Firms cited a mix of causes, the loss of MetaTrader access, brutal competition that drove challenge prices to unsustainable lows, payout obligations outrunning revenue, and in some cases trader behavior the firms blamed for liquidity problems. Each new closure chipped further at trader trust, making customers warier about which firms could be relied on to still be operating, and paying, months down the line.
Trust and Payout Reliability Become the Industry’s Central Question
As more firms collapsed, the conversation across the sector shifted decisively toward payout reliability and longevity. Traders increasingly evaluated firms not just on profit splits and challenge fees but on whether a firm would survive long enough to honor a withdrawal. The firms that endured leaned into transparency, publishing payout figures and emphasizing their financial stability, while the year’s failures served as cautionary tales about how fragile many of the boom-era business models had been.
Prop Firm News October 2024
Consolidation Separates the Survivors from the Casualties
By the autumn of 2024, the sector had visibly split into two groups: a smaller set of well-capitalized, established firms that had weathered the platform crisis and the competitive squeeze, and a long tail of weaker operators that were closing, pausing, or quietly disappearing. The firms that survived had generally diversified their platforms beyond MetaTrader, built more sustainable pricing, and maintained the cash to keep paying traders. The reshuffle made clear that the era of launching a prop firm cheaply on a grey-labeled MetaTrader license and competing purely on price was ending.
Prop Firm News September 2024
Fallout from the MFF Misconduct Revelations Ripples Through the Sector
Following the summer revelations of misconduct in the CFTC’s handling of the My Forex Funds case, the early autumn saw the industry continue to digest what the saga meant for the regulatory future of prop trading. The case had been widely expected to set the tone for how US authorities would treat the sector, and the discovery of serious problems in the regulator’s own conduct complicated that picture. Rather than delivering the decisive regulatory precedent many anticipated, the MFF case left the question of how, and whether, US regulators would police prop firms unresolved.
Prop Firm News August 2024
The Industry Operates in a New, Platform-Diversified Normal
By late summer 2024, the scramble that followed the February MetaTrader cutoff had settled into a new status quo. Many firms had migrated to alternative platforms such as Match-Trader, cTrader, DXtrade, and TradeLocker, restricted or dropped US clients, and rebuilt their operations around the reality that reliance on MetaQuotes was no longer safe. The frantic, week-by-week uncertainty of the spring had given way to a more deliberate restructuring, even as the steady stream of closures continued in the background.
Prop Firm News July 2024
CFTC Faces Embarrassment as Misconduct Surfaces in the My Forex Funds Case
On 12 July 2024, the My Forex Funds saga took a dramatic turn when CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham publicly amplified allegations of misconduct by the agency’s own enforcement staff in its case against the firm. The development was a significant embarrassment for the regulator that had forced one of the world’s largest prop firms offline in 2023, raising questions about the integrity of the enforcement action. While it was not a clean vindication for the prop trading industry, it badly undercut the case that many had expected to define the sector’s regulatory future.
Funded Engineer Shuts Down and Files for Bankruptcy
Just days later, on 15 July 2024, Funded Engineer announced the permanent closure of its operations, effective immediately, and said it would file for bankruptcy. The firm had attempted a strategic restructuring to stay afloat but failed to stabilize its finances, becoming one of the more prominent names in the year’s long list of failures. Its collapse was emblematic of how even firms that tried to adapt were being overwhelmed by the pressures bearing down on the sector.
Prop Firm News June 2024
Platform Migration Becomes the Industry Standard
By mid-2024, moving off MetaTrader was no longer an emergency response but an established industry direction. Alternative platforms including Match-Trader, cTrader, DXtrade, and TradeLocker steadily expanded their footprint among prop firms, and platform and technology providers competed to win over operators stranded by the MetaQuotes cutoff. The shift permanently altered the sector’s technology stack, ending the near-universal dominance MetaTrader had enjoyed over retail prop trading at the start of the year.
Prop Firm News May 2024
The Sector Counts the Cost of the MetaTrader Cutoff
Through the spring, the full consequences of losing MetaTrader access came into focus. Firms that had migrated quickly to new platforms were stabilizing, while those that hesitated, lost US revenue, or couldn’t absorb the disruption began to falter. The episode exposed how dangerously dependent the entire retail prop model had been on a single third-party platform provider, and it reset expectations about the operational resilience a serious firm needed to have.
Prop Firm News April 2024
Firms Race to Rebuild on New Platforms
In the weeks after the crackdown, the dominant story was the scramble to rebuild. Prop firms worked to migrate existing traders onto alternative platforms, reassure customers that funded accounts and payouts were intact, and adjust their onboarding to comply with the new restrictions around US clients. The speed and smoothness of a firm’s migration became an early indicator of which operators were well-run enough to survive the turmoil ahead.
Prop Firm News March 2024
The Crackdown Reshapes the Sector as Firms Drop US Clients
In the immediate aftermath of February’s events, a widening group of prop firms moved to restrict or block US clients to avoid the same MetaTrader cutoff that had hit Funding Pips. What had started as a single firm’s crisis quickly became an industry-wide retreat from the large US retail market, at least on MetaTrader. The restrictions marked a turning point, forcing firms to choose between keeping MetaTrader and keeping US customers, a tradeoff that would reshape the competitive landscape for the rest of the year.
Prop Firm News February 2024
MetaQuotes Crackdown Begins as Funding Pips Loses MetaTrader Access
On 15 February 2024, the prop trading industry was thrown into crisis when MetaQuotes forced broker Blackbull Markets to terminate its services to Funding Pips, citing the firm’s active US clients and the lack of necessary regulatory approvals. The move abruptly cut a major prop firm off from the MetaTrader platforms that the entire retail sector relied on. It was the opening shot in what became known across the industry as “prop-ageddon,” a sweeping MetaQuotes crackdown on prop firms serving US traders.
FTMO and Other Major Firms Halt US Client Onboarding
Within days, the crackdown spread to the sector’s biggest names. On 18 February 2024, Finance Magnates reported that FTMO had stopped onboarding US clients, with new traders on US IP addresses unable to register, and the firm began migrating affected users toward the DXtrade platform. Alpha Capital, The5ers, and MyFundedFX moved to block or restrict US clients in the same period. The speed at which the largest firms retreated from the US market showed how existential the MetaTrader dependency had suddenly become.
Funding Pips Returns on Match-Trader as the Migration Wave Starts
On 20 February 2024, after about a week of turmoil, Funding Pips announced it had completed a migration to Match-Trader, coming back online with trading conditions and commissions unchanged. The rapid switch became a template for the rest of the industry, demonstrating that firms could survive the loss of MetaTrader by moving to alternative platforms. Days later, on 27 February, US-based Top Tier Trader went further and scrapped MetaTrader entirely, moving all clients to TradeLocker, an early sign of the permanent platform shift to come.
Prop Firm News January 2024
The Industry Enters 2024 on a Knife’s Edge
Prop trading began 2024 still growing but increasingly aware of the risks hanging over it. The My Forex Funds case from the previous August had put regulation squarely on the agenda, and the sector’s near-total reliance on MetaTrader platforms, licensed through grey-label broker arrangements, remained an unaddressed structural vulnerability. Firms continued competing aggressively on price, payouts, and challenge formats, with little sense that the platform dependency they all shared was about to become the year’s defining crisis.
Demand for MetaTrader Alternatives Quietly Builds
Entering the year, a growing undercurrent of interest in MetaTrader alternatives, platforms like cTrader, DXtrade, Match-Trader, and TradeLocker, was building among brokers and prop firms wary of over-reliance on a single provider. At the time it was a minor, forward-looking theme rather than an urgent priority. Within weeks, the MetaQuotes crackdown would turn that quiet hedging instinct into a frantic, sector-wide migration.
Prop Firm News December 2023
The Industry Closes a Pivotal Year Split Between Boom and Backlash
By the end of 2023, the prop trading sector looked very different than it had in January. The retail challenge model was still growing fast and the largest firms were posting record numbers, but the My Forex Funds shutdown had injected lasting uncertainty about regulation, terminology, and the long-term viability of the business model. Firms spent the close of the year hardening their language around “simulated” and “virtual” trading and watching to see whether US regulators would press further. The mood heading into 2024 was a mix of momentum and caution, a sector that had grown too big to ignore.
FTMO’s Scale Becomes Clear as a Cash-Rich Market Leader
Reporting on FTMO’s financials underscored just how large the category leader had become by the end of 2023. The Czech firm closed the year with well over $80 million in cash on hand and a 2023 turnover later reported at roughly $213 million, figures that set it apart from the wave of smaller, thinly capitalized firms that had flooded the market. FTMO’s strength positioned it for the acquisitions and expansion it would pursue in 2024, and illustrated the growing gap between a few dominant players and the long tail of newer entrants.
Prop Firm News November 2023
“Simulated” and “Virtual” Become the Industry’s New Safe Words
In the months following the My Forex Funds case, prop firms across the sector noticeably shifted how they described their products, leaning hard on terms like “simulated” and “virtual” trading. The change was a direct response to the CFTC’s fraud allegations, which centered on how MFF characterized its accounts and its relationship with customers. Firms moved to clarify that their evaluations and many funded accounts operated in simulated environments, reframing their messaging to put distance between themselves and the claims at the heart of the MFF complaint.
Scrutiny of the Prop Model Pushes Firms to Rethink Broker Relationships
As the fallout from the MFF case continued, attention turned to how prop firms were structured behind the scenes, including their reliance on third-party brokers and platform providers. The industry began a broader reassessment of the arrangements that underpinned the retail model, from how customer funds and trades were handled to how firms described the capital traders were using. This period marked the start of a more self-aware, compliance-conscious phase for a sector that had grown explosively with relatively little oversight.
Prop Firm News October 2023
Calls Grow for Regulation of the Prop Trading Sector
In the wake of the My Forex Funds action, October saw mounting discussion that the CFTC’s move might trigger a wider regulatory push on the prop trading industry. The case had exposed how a firm could generate hundreds of millions of dollars from retail customers with little regulatory supervision, and commentators across the industry debated whether formal oversight was now inevitable. The uncertainty weighed on firms that had built their businesses on the assumption that the evaluation model sat outside traditional financial regulation.
The Sector Absorbs the Reality of Its First Major Enforcement Shock
With the largest retail forex prop firm forced offline, the rest of the industry spent October adjusting to a new reality. Traders questioned the safety of their funded accounts at other firms, and operators worked to reassure customers that payouts would continue. The episode demonstrated how quickly confidence could erode across the whole sector when a major player collapsed, and it accelerated conversations about transparency, payout reliability, and which firms could be trusted.
Prop Firm News September 2023
My Forex Funds Is Forced Offline as the CFTC Case Unfolds
The CFTC’s late-August complaint against Traders Global Group, the operator of My Forex Funds, took full effect in early September 2023, with the firm forced to halt operations. As one of the largest retail forex prop firms in the world, MFF’s sudden shutdown sent shockwaves through the industry and left tens of thousands of funded and evaluation traders without access to their accounts. It was, by a wide margin, the most consequential prop firm story of the year.
Dissecting How My Forex Funds Generated $310 Million
As the case drew scrutiny, attention turned to how MFF had built such a large business. The CFTC’s complaint alleged the firm generated at least $310 million, largely from the fees retail customers paid to attempt evaluations, and questioned the way the firm represented those customers as “professional traders” and how it handled their trading. The breakdown of the MFF model became a reference point for understanding the economics, and the regulatory risks, of the entire retail challenge sector.
Prop Firm News August 2023
CFTC Charges My Forex Funds with Fraud in a Landmark Action
At the end of August 2023, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a complaint against Traders Global Group and its CEO, Murtuza Kazmi, the operators of My Forex Funds, alleging fraud connected to a business the regulator said had generated at least $310 million. The action led to the firm’s forced shutdown and froze assets, marking the first time a major US regulator had moved so forcefully against a leading retail prop firm. The case immediately became the defining event of the year for the industry and the catalyst for a broad rethink of how prop firms operate and describe themselves.
Apex Trader Funding Cements Its Place as a Futures Prop Leader
On the futures side of the industry, August brought attention to Apex Trader Funding’s scale, with the Texas-based firm reported to have paid out more than $24 million in trader compensation since its launch, averaging several million dollars per month through 2023. The figures highlighted how the futures evaluation model, distinct from the forex-focused firms caught up in the MFF turmoil, had built its own large and growing base. Apex’s momentum underscored that the prop boom was not confined to forex.
Prop Firm News July 2023
The Retail Prop Sector Keeps Scaling Through Mid-Year
Through the middle of 2023, the retail prop firm industry continued its rapid expansion, with established firms posting growing payout figures and new entrants launching at a steady pace. Competition pushed firms to differentiate on profit splits, payout speed, and challenge formats, with one-step and instant-funding models becoming increasingly common selling points. The summer represented the high-water mark of the boom’s untroubled phase, before the regulatory shock that would arrive in late August.
Prop Firm News June 2023
FTMO Moves to Acquire Traditional Prop Firm Quantlane
In June 2023, FTMO, the largest of the modern retail prop firms, completed a deal to acquire Quantlane, a traditional proprietary trading company based in Prague. The acquisition signaled FTMO’s ambition to expand beyond the retail evaluation model and deepen its footprint in professional, institutional-style trading. It was an early sign of the consolidation and vertical expansion that would characterize the strongest firms as the sector matured.
Prop Firm News May 2023
New Prop Firm Tradiac Launches with a “Redemption” Model
On 31 May 2023, Michael Buchbinder, a managing partner at Swedish broker Scandinavian Capital Markets, launched a new proprietary trading firm called Tradiac in partnership with an unnamed hedge fund. Tradiac pitched itself against the industry norm of instantly disqualifying traders for breaking strict risk rules, offering “redemption” tests that let traders return to their previous funding level. The launch reflected how new entrants were trying to differentiate by softening the harsh pass-or-fail mechanics that defined most evaluations.
GCEX Expands Into Prop Trading Platforms
Around the same time, digital prime broker GCEX expanded into the proprietary trading space with the launch of two platforms, XplorSpot and XplorTrader, aimed at brokers, fund managers, hedge funds, and professional traders. The move was part of a broader trend of infrastructure and technology providers building tools specifically for the fast-growing prop sector. It showed that the boom was drawing in not just new firms but the service providers positioning to support them.
Prop Firm News April 2023
The Challenge Model Proliferates as Firms Compete on Format
Through the spring of 2023, the competitive race among retail prop firms increasingly played out over evaluation structure. One-step challenges, faster payouts, higher profit splits, and instant-funding options became central marketing points as dozens of firms fought for the same pool of retail traders. This period entrenched the features that would come to define the modern prop firm, even as the rapid, lightly regulated growth set the stage for the scrutiny that arrived later in the year.
Prop Firm News March 2023
Firms Report Record Monthly Payouts as the Boom Accelerates
By March 2023, leading retail prop firms were publicizing substantial monthly payout figures as a way to build trust and attract traders, with the largest forex-focused firms reporting millions of dollars distributed and tens of thousands of active funded accounts. The transparency push reflected a maturing marketing playbook in a crowded field, where demonstrating real payouts had become a key competitive signal. Behind the headline numbers, the sheer scale of the largest firms, soon to be exposed in the My Forex Funds case, was becoming clear.
Prop Firm News February 2023
Prop Trading Executives Bet on Interest Rates as the Top Opportunity for 2023
A survey of proprietary trading executives published on 22 February 2023 found that the industry expected interest rate derivatives to be the most profitable asset class for prop firms in 2023, ahead of equity options, energy, and commodities. The findings captured a clear shift in focus toward rates after a year of aggressive central bank tightening, and reflected how the established, institutional side of proprietary trading was positioning itself for the year. It offered a useful snapshot of where experienced prop firms saw their edge heading into a higher-rate environment.
Demand for MetaTrader Alternatives Builds as B2Broker Adds Match-Trader
On 1 February 2023, technology and liquidity provider B2Broker announced it had added Match-Trader, a white-label platform from Match-Trade Technologies, to its offering, citing rising demand for alternatives to MetaTrader. While framed as a broker-technology story, it was an early signal of a theme that would go on to reshape the entire retail prop firm sector: a growing search for platforms beyond MetaTrader 4 and 5. The reliance on MetaTrader would later become a critical vulnerability for prop firms, making this early move toward alternatives a notable marker.
Prop Firm News January 2023
The Retail Prop Firm Boom Enters 2023 at Full Speed
Entering 2023, the retail proprietary trading industry was in the middle of explosive growth, with established firms like FTMO, The5ers, E8 Funding, FundedNext, Alpha Capital Group, and Audacity Capital competing for a rapidly expanding base of retail traders, and My Forex Funds standing as one of the largest players in the space. The dominant model was the paid evaluation, or “challenge,” in which traders pay a fee to prove themselves before receiving a funded account, and competition was driving firms toward cheaper challenges, faster payouts, and newer formats like one-step evaluations and instant funding. This momentum set the stage for a pivotal year in which the sector’s rapid, largely unregulated expansion would soon attract far greater scrutiny.
The MetaTrader Dependency That Would Define the Year Ahead
At the start of 2023, the overwhelming majority of retail forex prop firms ran their evaluations on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, licensed largely through grey-label arrangements with brokers, an arrangement most traders and firms gave little thought to at the time. This structural dependency on a single platform provider, MetaQuotes, was the quiet backdrop to the entire industry as the year opened. It would become a defining storyline once MetaQuotes later moved against prop firms serving US clients, but in January 2023 it was simply the unremarked-upon foundation the sector was built on.