Earn2Trade is scammy, I heard a nightmare story from a profitable funded trader who got breached his account because of a medium news not related at all to his traded instruments.
Is that challenge prop business model sustainable ? Discussion
- Thread starter TrAndy2022
- Start date
I have heard similar stories at other firms as well, there is only one answer to this: read the FAQ and read the contract. If the rules state you can't trade during certain times then don't.
It might be far stretched, but if the trader agreed to it by signing the contract and then forgot about it then it's not Earn2Trade who's to blame.
Topstep puts traders in live accounts after they performed well in the funded sim.
Yes, initially they put funded traders is a simulated account, you can withdraw those profits and yes, these come from failed traders, that's just how the business model works. These companies aren't charities and they have to protect themselves from gamblers as well, most of the traders who get the simulated funded account blow their account, so giving a live account straight away would only lose them money.
Not a single one of these firms is regulated as a broker, however Topstep does disclose at which clearing partners the live accounts are held, same for Earn2Trade.
I didn't knew Earn2Trade moved to Dubai, but I guess that was mostly for tax reasons since they stayed in the USA long after they had that issue with their previous CEO, who was out of the company long before the CFTC took action against him, not against Earn2Trade.
These companies aren't charities I am not saying they should be but "paying from failed traders fees" is a recipe for so many "firms" going out of business, the Bmodel is good for the firm but sucks for the trader , REAL prop firms ( regulated) hunt trading talent at own cost... not by this method.. One day sooooon regulators are going to come knocking on the door with a sledgehammer
And until that day comes I am happy to make money with/from them
.If Topstep was doing anything wrong the regulators would have knocked on their door a long time ago, as has happened with other firms.
By the way, how soon is sooooon since I've heard that for many years now.
One big problem nowadays with challenge props I see, is the payout delays. Often it takes weeks until you can trade again. In contrast to any personal broker account you could trade anytime and scale up too. I calculated that the whole advantage to trade on any prop, based on more money you get from profits, vanish to zero when there is more than 1 or 2 weeks payout delay where you cannot continue to trade on your prop funded accounts. So profitable trader who do the math will think twice to join any prop firm in theses days. I disregarded any other rules and restrictions here which are also harming the total outcome. Like the spreads and slippage on props versus the best conditions you can get on your own personal broker, just to make an example. All in all there is no advantage really left. It only makes sense for cheaters and degen gamblers to participate on prop firms, who are sometimes profitable with a home run. They profit from props. That is dangerous development for the (challenge) prop firm industry I find.
I literally had the money from my last payout in my personal account in 9 hours.
Oh and there are no rules saying you can't continue trading while waiting for the withdrawal at Topstep.
CFD and Forex firms might mess with the slippage, spread and executions, but I haven't experienced that at all at Topstep so far. Other than that Topstep only has 1 rule that makes you lose the account and that is the maximum loss limit.
It seems like the ones with the least experience or knowledge about the topic always have the strongest opinions, but not based on facts ...
You are right there are few exceptions, but they are rare like Topstep. On Apex you need to wait weeks to get your payout approved. And they are the biggest among futures props. On FX there is only FTMO and The5ers which are good. For me there is also some tax laws which makes it way more unattractive to work with props.
They are, or were the biggest, but they are losing a lot of clients to Topstep right now due to their stupid new rules in regards to withdrawal and scaling in or out of trades.
I know these kinds of firms, including Topstep, mostly make money from losing traders who keep buying accounts or keep resetting them, but if you can trade with some discipline then it's not that hard. Most of the traders who try these kind of accounts just don't know what they are doing or what they are signing up for, that's just stupidity. These are the same kind of traders that blow their personal accounts over and over again and they see a cheap opportunity to get some leverage and have big and unrealistic expectations.
That being said, in my opinion, it can be a good opportunity if you approach it the right way.