Hidden trading rules often matter more than profit splits.

Compare drawdown and payout rules before buying a challenge.

Rulebook transparency, Velotrade said, helps traders avoid costly surprises.

HONG KONG, July 29, 2026 — Velotrade today released its 2026 Prop Firm Transparency Report, a comparative review of the published rulebooks of six proprietary trading firms: Topstep, FTMO, FundingPips, Blue Guardian, HyroTrader and Velotrade.

The report examines the terms that determine whether a funded trader is ultimately paid, and concludes that most funded accounts are closed not because of poor trading, but because of rules set out in evaluation guides and help-center pages.

According to the report, across more than 300,000 funded accounts, only around 7% of traders ever drew a payout, and the reason typically had little to do with trading ability.

Velotrade said the report is intended to help traders compare firms on the terms that most often decide a payout rather than on profit splits alone.

Its central finding is that a trader can clear every stage of a challenge and close a position in profit, yet still have the account terminated over a clause that was not read at the point of purchase.

“Could a trader read our rules once, in one sitting, and know every way their account could end? If the answer is no, the rulebook is not finished. Most of this industry has treated that as a marketing problem. We think it is the entire product,” said Gianluca Pizzituti, Chief Executive Officer of Velotrade.

Rules, not losing trades, account for most closures

The report cites two separate industry datasets in support of its central claim.

In a 2024 study by FPFX Tech covering more than 300,000 accounts, reported via Finance Magnates, just 7% of traders ever reached a payout, and only about 14% cleared a challenge in the first place.

A separate 500,000-trader analysis by hoc-trade found that roughly 70% of failures came from hitting loss limits, not from missing profit targets.

The report says consistency rules can erase 33% to 50% of the profit made on a single strong day, and that four of the six firms reviewed apply one.

Taken together, the report argues, the figures point to a consistent conclusion: the trade is seldom the issue, the rulebook is.

A market expanding as firms fail

The report places those findings against rapid growth in the sector.

It says monthly searches for “prop firm” climbed from roughly 880 in early 2020 to about 49,500 by 2025, a 56-fold increase, drawing waves of first-time buyers into an industry whose decisive terms sit off the sales page.

That growth, the report states, has been accompanied by high-profile failures.

After MetaQuotes withdrew MT4 and MT5 licenses from prop firms serving US clients in February 2024, several prominent names collapsed.

The report says The Funded Trader halted operations and later acknowledged more than $2 million in denied payouts; True Forex Funds shut down citing insolvency, leaving roughly 300 traders owed $1.2 million; and SurgeTrader closed within days, with its CEO conceding that about 10% of payout obligations went unpaid.

The same trade, two firms, two outcomes

Every prop account has a maximum-loss line, the report explains, but firms set it in fundamentally different ways, and the difference can decide the identical trade twice.

A fixed drawdown is set from the starting balance and does not shift: on a $100,000 account with a 10% limit, the account fails at $90,000. A trailing drawdown rises with equity and does not fall back.

To illustrate, the report models one account through both approaches.

An ordinary day-seven pullback bottoms out about $10,000 above a fixed $90,000 floor, leaving the account intact and finishing up roughly $6,500.

Under a trailing floor that has ratcheted up near the peak, the report says the very same dip breaches the line and closes the account outright.

The report notes that FTMO anchors its maximum loss at 10% of the starting balance, while Topstep’s trailing limit rises with the end-of-day balance and locks at the start.

Neither firm conceals its model, the report says, but the distinction between fixed and trailing is decisive rather than a footnote.

Consistency rules and the penalty for a strong day

A consistency rule limits how much of a trader’s total profit can come from any one session, the report explains, meaning a trader can perform strongly and still fail.

Under a 40% single-day cap with a $1,000 target, it says a strong $450 session represents 45% of profit, over the line, so the evaluation fails even though the target was met.

According to the report, Topstep, FundingPips, Blue Guardian and HyroTrader each apply a version of the rule, during evaluation or on a payout tier, and FTMO applies a 50% Best Day Rule on its 1-Step product, documented in its help center rather than the headline rules.

It adds that the tightest single-day caps tend to sit on the most attractive payout options, and that Velotrade applies no consistency rule at any stage.

For readers weighing the crypto-focused end of the market, Velotrade’s rundown of the top crypto prop firms sets these terms out side by side.

The rule that can close a profitable trade

Loss limits close the most accounts, the report states, but it identifies a quieter rule as the hardest to anticipate, because it can shut an account on a trade that never closes at a loss.

The report describes a max-risk-per-trade rule, which caps how much any single position or trade idea may lose at any moment, measured on unrealized, floating profit and loss rather than on closed trades.

It sits beneath the advertised daily loss limit.

If an open trade’s paper loss so much as touches the cap intraday, even for a second, the report explains, the rule can trigger and the account is closed, even if that trade would have gone on to close in profit.

The report identifies three features that make the rule easy to miss at the point of purchase:

• It is measured on unrealized loss, so the trade never has to close in the red.
• It can switch on only after funding, meaning a trader can pass the entire evaluation without ever meeting the rule that then governs the funded account.
• It can aggregate re-entries, so closing a losing trade and reopening in the same direction can combine the losses toward the cap.

The report notes that firms name the rule differently. Blue Guardian’s “Guardian Shield” force-closes trades near 1-2% unrealized, depending on account type, with a first breach cutting the split to 50% and a second closing the account.

FundingPips applies a “Risk Per Trade Idea” rule at the funded stage that aggregates re-entries. HyroTrader requires a stop-loss within five minutes of every trade, monitored live.

Velotrade, the report states, publishes no secondary per-trade or per-idea cap beneath its daily limit.

None of these is illegitimate as risk management, the report says. Its argument concerns placement: a rule that can end a funded account arguably belongs next to the price, not several pages into a help center.

The six rulebooks, side by side

The report’s full rulebook comparison sets all six firms against the terms that most often decide a payout.

Velotrade noted that, because it both published the report and appears in the final column, that column reflects a market participant’s own position rather than a neutral grade, and said traders should verify current terms directly with each firm.

The comparison, as published in the report, is reproduced below.

Source: each firm’s own published rules pages, help-center articles and FAQs, captured July 2026. “Varies by product” means the answer differs across a firm’s account types. Terms change frequently, so confirm current conditions before purchasing.

Where the established firms lead

The report is candid about the other side of the ledger. As a prop firm, Velotrade is new, having launched its challenges in 2026, while FTMO (2015) and Topstep (2012) have run trader evaluations for far longer.

Paying out funded traders at scale, the report acknowledges, is something only time proves, and on that specific record the incumbents have years of history while Velotrade is early.

It notes that several firms also scale funded accounts well beyond Velotrade’s $200,000 ceiling and support more platforms, and advises traders to weigh a clean rulebook and a paid-out track record together.

A ten-minute check before buying a challenge

The report’s practical recommendation is that ten minutes spent reading the terms may matter more than any comparison of profit splits. Drawing on its review of six prop firm rulebooks, it advises traders to establish:

• Drawdown mechanics: fixed from the initial balance or trailing equity? If trailing, end-of-day or tick-by-tick, and when does it lock?
• Consistency rules: evaluation, funded, or both? Tied to a payout tier? What is the exact single-day cap?
• Per-trade caps: is there a secondary cap beneath the daily limit, does it measure unrealized losses, and does it aggregate re-entries?
• Funded-stage changes: do rules activate, tighten or disappear once funded, and does the account start at a reduced balance?
• Payout conditions: minimum trading days, withdrawal frequency, first-payout waiting periods, and whether a payout can be declined at the firm’s discretion.
• Where it is written: are all account-ending rules on a single page, and can support point to each one in writing?

Regulatory attention is increasing

The report also notes growing regulatory scrutiny of the sector.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to open a public consultation on 1 August 2026, with comments closing on 30 November 2026, on whether challenge fees amount to “commodity-pool participation interests,” a designation that could bring evaluation-based US futures prop firms under CFTC and NFA registration.

In Europe, the report says, the FCA and ESMA have reiterated that prop marketing to retail must carry prominent risk warnings and drop misleading performance claims, and regulators in Europe, Australia and North America are examining whether charging a fee without delivering funding resembles a pay-to-play model.

The report cautions that none of this is settled law, and notes that some bodies, including CySEC and, for now, ESMA, have signaled that prop trading is not an immediate priority.

Still, it argues the direction of travel is toward standardized, upfront disclosure, the same shift most other consumer financial products have already made.

Conclusion

The report concludes that the prop model itself is sound, since backing skilled traders with firm capital is a reasonable idea, and that what lags is disclosure at the point of sale.

Comparing rulebooks, it argues, deserves at least the same weight traders give to comparing profit splits, because the rulebook, in the end, decides whether the split is ever paid.

About Velotrade

Velotrade is a proprietary trading firm offering funded trading challenges across crypto, forex, stocks, indices and commodities, built around a single, fully published rulebook and a fixed drawdown model.

The firm says it places transparency at the center of its offering, aiming to ensure that every rule capable of ending an account is disclosed in one place before a trader buys.

Velotrade Re Limited is incorporated and registered in Hong Kong, where its founding team has operated a licensed invoice-finance business since 2016, with founders drawn from JP Morgan, Bank of America and Dresdner Kleinwort.

All trading services are provided in a simulated environment using demo accounts with simulated funds. For more information, visit velotrade.com.

Media Contact: Velotrade Press Office, [email protected]

Disclaimer: This press release is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures and firm terms are drawn from Velotrade’s 2026 Prop Firm Transparency Report and publicly available sources as of mid-2026; terms change frequently, and readers should verify current conditions directly with each firm before purchasing any evaluation. Trading carries significant risk.