r/proptrading

I’ve been in crypto for a while now, and the longer i stay in it, the more it feels like everything falls into two extremes.

on one side, you’ve got the play it safe approach, holding valid projects, maybe some BTC/ETH, adding over time, and just letting it grow slowly. It’s definitely the safest route, but tbh it can feel painfully slow, especially if you didn’t start with a big amount.

on the other side, there’s the full degen route… high leverage, low caps, chasing narratives, trying to catch those quick 2x–10x moves. and yeah, sometimes it works… but it also feels like you’re one bad trade away from setting yourself back months (or worse).

what i’m struggling with is figuring out if there’s actually a real middle ground here.

like, is there a way to grow a portfolio faster than just holding, but without constantly taking huge risks or stressing over every move.. like something more structured or repeatable, not just luck or gambling.

i’ve tried a bit of everything some swing trades here and there, a little bit of DeFi, even experimented with small leverage but i still can’t tell if i’m actually optimizing or just overcomplicating things.

are people actually running strategies that sit in that middle zone and scaling consistently, or is it one of those things that sounds good in theory but doesn’t really work in practice?

would be interesting to hear from people who’ve managed to find that balance, because right now it feels like you either accept slow growth or take on way more risk than you’re comfortable with.

Daily drawdown is usually the obvious killer, but I feel like there are other things that take out traders just as often.

Overtrading, revenge trading after losses, ignoring rules for “one recovery trade”, or simply sizing too big on good setups.

From your experience, what do you think actually causes most traders to fail before they even get close to consistency?

I have been stuck in the same cycle for way too long where I pass a challenge then get funded and eventually hit a bad streak that eats the 10 percent drawdown and kills my account . It finally clicked for me that risking 1 percent of a 100k account is actually total madness because you do not actually have 100k to play with. You only have 10k before the firm rugs you. So in reality you are risking 10 percent of your actual liquid life every single trade which is why the psychology is so hard to manage.

I decided to code my own strategie into an EA (bot) that calculates risk based strictly on the max drawdown value instead of the total balance. If the firm gives me a 10k limit it treats that 10k as the 100 percent.I also programmed it so the risk percentage drops significantly after every loss creating Zeno's paradoxes. It basically creates this mathematical floor where it becomes nearly impossible to actually hit the breach level because the position sizes keep shrinking as you get closer to the limit. Then when it is in profit it scales the risk back up to move the needle faster, but not as fast as to risk even more because the percenntage has a celleing set too.

I have been running this logic on a few accounts lately and for the first time the equity curve actually looks sustainable.I'm not saying this is 100% guaranteed not to hit the max drawdown, I just made it 20 times harder and automated my actions to not be in a cycle of doubt that I dont see myself living with in the future.

I’m curious how many people actually managed to get payouts and how long it took so I thought I’d do a poll

Also if you voted no, how many have you tried already?

View Poll

Can someone show me the spreads of other firms I have only used 5ers so idk about spreads for others. Send a screenshot of the eurgbp eurjpy and usdcad spread pls

Just starting out in prop firms, have a prior experience with brokers, which model will be more suitable to me.

Instant or 2-Step?

Been seeing all these prop firm ads and tried a couple challenges. Passed one but payout got delayed forever then they said some rule violation I didn't even know about. Now looking at others that seem better with leverage but reddit has mixed stories. Some say they pay quick others call scam. For people who traded prop firms recently, which ones actually let you withdraw without bs?

Watched another demo account hero bite the dust this week. Guy posts his 500% paper gains on week 2, then ghosts after bragging about quitting his job. Shocker. Meanwhile the rest of us mortals stare at charts wondering if we accidentally signed up for financial russian roulette.

Truth is most noobs fail because they treat trading like its a casino with better lighting. They skip the part where you spend 6 months not trading just marking levels on replay, and instead yolo into every red candle because Tiktok said its a reversal. Or they leverage up to 50x because why risk 1% when you can nuke the account in one fomo short. Genius.

Then there is the psychology circus. One loss and suddenly rules are suggestions, revenge trades are the comeback plan, and the journal is just a sad diary of blown stops. Newsflash: the market doesn't care about your motivation Monday pep talk. It will humble you faster than your ex on Facebook.

Had a laugh reviewing my own first 3 months. Blew 3k chasing setups i saw on Insta, convinced i was the next prop payout king. Spoiler: i wasn't.

Saw this dude post not saying a name because there are a lot like him a 1700 dollar day on 5k account, all i could think was how the hell without blowing up. I check these prop blown accounts like that one guy did with 50 csvs, zero hit profit target first, all died on drawdown from sizing creep. Started 1 contract, next win streak 2 then 4 bam gone.

My dumb ass did same yesterday. Picked NVDA premarket high vol, entered 50 shares cuz felt right, dipped instant, averaged down to 100, held praying rebound. Sold at 8 percent loss total but felt like puking. Meanwhile that stock ripped 20 later. Why we never show this shit? Sizing too big kills psych faster than bad setups. Felt ok on small wins before but one loss and i am revenge trading.

Hey, not sure if this is the right place but figured I’d ask

I’m 22, residing in Poland and I’m Polish/mixed, working at the Bank of New York in Poland. Good job on paper but honestly the corpo ladder isn’t for me, I’ve realised that more and more recently.

Since October I’ve been teaching myself growth investing and getting into swing trading. Making mistakes, learning as I go.

I know it takes time and I’m not rushing it. I’m planning to build a proper self-study curriculum — risk management, swing trading theory, all of it — and eventually attempt a prop firm eval. Also looking to switch jobs to something more finance-facing in the meantime.

Just looking for honest advice from people who’ve been through it. Where did you actually start? What do you wish you knew earlier?
Appreciate any replies.

Let’s say someone has 10 funded accounts across 10 different prop firms, trading ES.
Each account makes just +2 points per day (~$100 per account), and the trades are then copied across all accounts.
In theory, that would be about $1,000/day total profit.
My question is:
Is this actually doable in practice, or does it break down because of execution, risk limits, or prop firm rules?
Specifically:
Would copy trading even work reliably across multiple prop accounts?
Would slippage and fills make this unrealistic?
Do prop firms have rules that would flag or restrict this kind of setup?
Or is this just one of those “sounds good on paper but doesn’t scale” ideas?
Curious to hear from people who’ve tried scaling or running multiple funded accounts.

Daily drawdown or consistency rule, which haunts you more?
I came across a firm which has set a 1% DD and I am a newbie wanted to know what is worse for traders

Most traders pick a firm based on challenge price and drawdown limits. Fair enough. But those aren't usually what ends the funded account.

The rules that do the real damage tend to be the ones that conflict with how you specifically trade.

Consistency rule is the one I see hurt people the most. If your edge naturally comes from 2-3 strong sessions a month, that rule is fighting you every single week. Not a discipline issue, just the wrong environment for your style.

Intraday trailing drawdown is another one. Once your floor starts rising with every winning tick, something shifts. You stop managing the trade and start managing the floor instead. It happens without you noticing.

Minimum trading days is probably the most underrated. Pushes selective traders to take setups that aren't there just to hit the count. That's usually where the account goes.

Built something free around this. propbehavior.vercel.app. 8 questions about how you trade, gives you a ranked list of firms based on which rules are going to create the least friction for your profile. No signup needed.

Which rule has caused you the most friction?

My son, Amjad, is a young man in the prime of his life. He worked very hard in the construction field for years, and the job was extremely exhausting and physically demanding. Every day, he would come home completely drained from fatigue, and he continued living this way for more than three years.

During that time, he dedicated himself to learning trading, studying the markets, and analyzing them in creative and professional ways. Eventually, he gained solid experience and started trading with several well-known brokers and companies, achieving good profits that allowed him to leave behind the exhausting physical labor.

Everything was going well until he decided to trade all his capital with Funding Pips. That is when the real problem began. After he made profits with them, they prevented him from withdrawing his money and started delaying and stalling without any clear or justified reason.

These profits and funds did not come easily. They were the result of long nights, months of hard study, dedication, and continuous effort.

I am writing today to ask readers and experienced people for advice and guidance:
What are the best legal or practical steps that can be taken in a situation like this? Has anyone experienced something similar with this company?

Dr-Nabil

I have been attempting prop firm challenges since early last year and I keep getting close but never quite making it. Either I blow up near the end of Phase 1 or I pass and then fail Phase 2 trying to be too conservative. I am starting to wonder if I am the problem or if the structure of these evaluations is just designed to make you fail. Would love to hear from people who actually broke through after a long struggle. Maybe I just suck lol

I've spent the last few months designing a
desktop app for prop traders focused on
discipline and accountability rather than
strategy or signals.

Current features in the prototype:
- AI onboarding that learns your prop firm
rules, strategy, and what tilt looks like
for you personally
- Real time P&L monitoring via OCR — works
across any platform, no API needed
- Kill switch that locks you out automatically
when you hit your daily limit
- Pre-news alerts with context specific to
your instruments
- AI coach you can talk to during your session

It's currently a visual prototype — not fully
functional yet. I'm looking for 5-10 traders
willing to look at the UI, tell me if this
solves a real problem for them, and give
brutally honest feedback on whether they'd
actually use and pay for something like this.

Not trying to sell anything. Just want real
opinions from active traders before I spend
weeks finishing the build.

If you're interested comment or msg me

If there was an AI app that would know your rules and lock you out once your daily loss or profit has been hit, notified you when there was news would you pay for it ? And why ?

Hi.

I am currently running an EA on GBPUSD on MT4. I always like to cancel the bot during news. Is there any way I can cancel the EA from my phone when I am not home on the computer. I thought maybe VPS is the solution, but please give me advice that you guys know work.

Thanks.

Hi everyone, I am considering a challenge with Xfunded (linked to Andrea Giudice). I've heard mixed things about their 45% consistency rule and some SL technicalities. Has anyone here actually received a payout recently? How was your experience with their support and execution? Thanks for any honest feedback!

I’ve noticed more traders slowly moving toward crypto-focused prop firms instead of the usual forex or CFD route.

Maybe it’s instant payouts, more accessible market data, 24/7 running markets or just the space in general.

I’m curious if anyone here has chosen crypto prop firms specifically, and what firms they stayed with?