Coming from a traditional prop firm
If you have traded at FTMO, Topstep, or any of the dozens of firms that followed them, you already understand about 80% of this platform. This page maps what you know onto what things are called here, and is honest about the 20% that has no equivalent.
The vocabulary, translated
| At a traditional firm | Here | What actually changed |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge / evaluation | Evaluation | Nothing |
| Phase 1 and Phase 2 | Phase 1 and Phase 2 | Nothing |
| Funded account | Funded account | Nothing. Still simulated, still real payouts. |
| Profit target, max drawdown, daily loss | The rulebook | Fixed platform-wide, and no firm can loosen it to sell more |
| Scaling plan | Account sizes unlocking with firm liquidity | Automatic, and tied to the firm's solvency rather than your streak |
| Your account dashboard | The terminal, plus a block explorer | The explorer is a public record you can check without asking anyone |
| Payout request | Payout request | No approval step behind it |
| Payout desk / compliance review | The | Code releasing funds against published rules |
| Support ticket about a denied payout | The dispute program | An on-chain process that pays out if the firm stalls |
| Firm's Trustpilot rating | Computed from that firm's real outcomes, not written by the firm | |
| Affiliate dashboard | On-chain affiliate vault | Earnings accrue on-chain and you claim them yourself |
| "We've paid out $40M" | Settled payout ledger | Every payout links to a transaction you can open |
What works exactly the way you expect
You buy an evaluation. You trade to a profit target without breaching a drawdown limit or a daily loss limit, over a minimum number of trading days. You pass, the account converts to funded, and you keep a split of what you make.
The numbers are 7% profit target, 10% maximum total drawdown, 5% maximum daily loss, and 4 minimum trading days. On a two-step, phase 2 asks for 5% instead of 7%. Those are set once for the whole platform, so the thing you usually do first at a new firm, reading the rulebook to find where they hid the trailing drawdown, is not necessary here. Evaluations & the rulebook is the full text and it is short.
Trading is manual and browser-based. No bots, no API keys, no copy trading, for anyone. If you are used to firms that ban algorithmic trading in the terms and enforce it inconsistently, here there is no programmatic order path at all.
What is different, and why
Firms compete on price and split, not on rules. Every firm on the protocol runs the same engine, the same rulebook, and the same payout machinery. A firm sets its branding, its price within a guided band, and its profit split. That is the list. You are not re-auditing a rulebook every time you try a new firm.
Your record follows you between firms. Build a clean payout history at one firm and it carries to every other firm on the protocol, attached to your wallet. Better standing means more funded accounts at once and shorter payout cooldowns. Nobody re-applies as an unknown. See Reputation across firms.
Risk is set by a machine, and you can watch it. Every firm's terms tighten or loosen automatically based on that firm's financial health, on a published scale, with the same code running on every firm. A firm's current health tier is visible on its storefront before you buy. There is no risk manager to appeal to and no risk manager who can quietly change your terms either. See The risk engine.
Rules cannot move under you. Whatever rulebook and split you were shown at purchase is locked to that account for its life. A firm's terms can tighten for evaluations sold later; yours are already locked. The split can never be raised above what you were shown.
No email, no password. You sign in by signing a message with a wallet. Getting a wallet covers what that means.
You are paid in the firm's token, not by bank transfer. This is the biggest single adjustment, and You passed. Now what? is the whole answer: what it is, how you sell it, and what the real risks are.
What has no equivalent here
There is nobody to call. No account manager, no compliance officer, no support agent with the authority to release a payout. That is the design rather than an omission. The upside is that there is also nobody with the authority to withhold one. The downside is that if you make a mistake with your own wallet, nobody can fix it for you.
There is no discretionary review of how you traded. Traditional firms reserve the right to void a pass for trading styles they decide they do not like, often after the fact. Here the rulebook is the entire pass decision and it is checked continuously by the engine as you trade. The one thing that can hold a payout is the automated integrity check, which looks for coordinated abuse across accounts rather than judging your style, and its holds are time-bounded and backed by a replayable proof.
There is no third-party audit yet. Traditional firms are not audited either, but they are usually a company with a registered address you could sue. This is a protocol, and the honest statement of what backs it is on Security & audit status. Read it before deciding how much to expose.
The one number that should change how you shop
At a traditional firm, "we have paid out $X" is a claim on a marketing page, and you weigh it against Trustpilot reviews and forum threads.
Here, every settled payout is a transaction on a public network. A firm's page opens on the ledger of what it has actually delivered, each row linking to the transaction. Two numbers are published side by side: what a firm claims it has paid, and how much of that carries an on-chain receipt. The gap between them is the thing worth looking at, and it is the closest thing this industry has ever had to a hard number.
That is the habit worth bringing across. Everything else about how you choose a firm you already know. See Choosing a firm.