DW
Darragh Ward
Oct 16, 2026
Three payouts no issues
Add-on balance of 25k was credited the day after I requested it with the scaling fee I expected.
Add-on balance of 25k was credited the day after I requested it with the scaling fee I expected.
Reliable fills on futures contracts even in the first minute of the cash open, which is where I live or die. KYC turnaround was under four hours on a weekday morning, which beat two competitors I had used before.
Challenge was priced attractively at a holiday sale but the reset fee is permanent at $179, so a single bad day cost more than the entry.
Journal export from their portal to CSV meant I could run my own stats without rebuilding anything.
Spreads during the London open are fine but widen aggressively at the New York close, which hurt a few of my late scalps. Workable platform, workable rules, but the overall feel is that you are a cost center rather than a counterparty.
After blowing one challenge on an EA I did not fully test, their 30 percent reset discount got me funded on attempt two. Reasonable commission schedule on micro NQ at 50 cents per side meant I could actually scalp the 10 point moves profitably. Daily loss limit at 4 percent is tight but it kept me from revenge trading after a bad Monday.
Instant funding tier at 10k let me skip the two-phase evaluation and start trading futures the same evening.
Spent a week reading the trailing drawdown explanation and once it clicked, risk management actually became simpler.
After two failed attempts elsewhere, their 25k evaluation finally felt winnable without stunt-sized risk. Second attempt finally funded after I slowed down and treated the phase one target as a soft number.
Weekly consistency reports from the risk team actually helped me tighten my position sizing on NQ.
Scaling to 200k came with a letter from the risk team outlining what to avoid in the next cycle. Daily drawdown resets at exactly 5pm NY time and does not sneak forward on daylight savings weekends. Finally a prop firm where the risk team explains what you did wrong instead of just closing the account.
Trailing drawdown killed my funded account at 2am when an Asian spike hit floating equity for 90 seconds and the dashboard never showed it. Spreads differ noticeably from the simulator version used during the evaluation; my scalping edge did not survive onto the funded.
Verification call was 12 minutes with a human who actually understood what a prop account is. Payout number four arrived two hours after I requested it, and the 90 percent split showed clearly on the statement. Profit target was hit comfortably with a mean reversion strategy on EURUSD during the New York session.
Trader portal shows pending payouts, cleared payouts, and the exact scaling trigger I need to hit next. Scaled across three accounts of 50k, 100k, and 200k simultaneously with a single consolidated payout statement each month.
Slippage ate my profit target on NQ during a CPI release when their simulator showed a fill at 15 and the actual fill was at 23. Payout invoice went unanswered for 11 days after I provided the matching business details requested during KYC.
Reliable execution during Fed days which is honestly the only test that matters for a futures scalper.
Account was closed one week after I passed phase two, with an email saying I had violated an undisclosed internal risk metric.
Scaling from a 25k account to a 100k allocation after three green months felt earned, not promotional. Payout denominated in USDC meant I did not lose four days to a wire bouncing through a correspondent bank.
Platform froze at FOMC for seven minutes and my stop never triggered, which pushed me past the daily loss limit by a hair. Dashboard showed wrong equity for an entire week after a platform update, and the risk team said the dashboard was advisory.
Challenge pricing at $179 for the 50k felt fair when I compared it against three competitors I had already failed.
Finally a prop firm where the risk team explains what you did wrong instead of just closing the account.
Phase one was clean, phase two was clean, and the funded account was live before the end of that same week.
Spreads doubled at every scheduled release, turning what should have been a 2 pip trade into a 5 pip trade with no recourse.
Dashboard showed wrong equity for an entire week after a platform update, and the risk team said the dashboard was advisory.
Reinstated an account that was flagged for a late news trade after I sent timestamps and the risk team agreed.
Scaling targets are moving goalposts in the sense that the next tier requirements change based on your current size, not posted up front. Fills on gold futures were decent during London but slipped noticeably in the thin Asian session right before Sydney open.
Profit split was quietly reduced from 90 percent to 80 percent for new payouts and the policy update was only on their blog. Phase one is practically unreachable with their spreads on majors, which are 1.3 pips at the London open versus the 0.6 their marketing shows. Platform froze at FOMC for seven minutes and my stop never triggered, which pushed me past the daily loss limit by a hair.
EA was flagged as a prohibited strategy with no warning, despite me having submitted the backtest during the funded onboarding. Hedge rule triggered a soft breach when I was not even hedging; I had two uncorrelated positions on different symbols. An entire payout cycle was skipped because they moved the cutoff date by 48 hours and my request landed on the wrong side of it.
Phase one is practically unreachable with their spreads on majors, which are 1.3 pips at the London open versus the 0.6 their marketing shows. Consistency rule was used as an excuse to pay out only 60 percent of my first withdrawal with no clear math on how they got there.
Reasonable commission schedule on micro NQ at 50 cents per side meant I could actually scalp the 10 point moves profitably. Found a firm that calculates trailing drawdown on closed equity instead of floating equity, which fits my style. Challenge support of 24 hour live chat actually answered a question about trailing drawdown math at 2am before the Tokyo open.
Payout processor rejected my bank with no explanation and they offered no alternative beyond trying the same bank again next cycle. Challenge was priced attractively at a holiday sale but the reset fee is permanent at $179, so a single bad day cost more than the entry.
Honestly, the challenge was fine, phase two was fine, the payout was fine, and nothing was better than fine anywhere. Fast challenge pass but a slow payout cycle that ended up at nine business days for my first withdrawal.
Daily loss was calculated using floating equity down to the tick, including spreads at the exact moment of a news release.
Scaling plan triggered automatically after my third payout request, so I did not have to open a ticket.
Portal is actually usable on mobile, which matters when a daily loss alert pings during lunch.
After five payouts the firm bumped my base split to 85 percent and extended the maximum trading days by 30.
Platform latency during the first minute of the cash open cost me my funded account on a trade that would have been profitable at my broker. Hidden rule killed my funded account when they decided copy trading between my own two funded accounts was unauthorized. KYC was stuck for three weeks because my passport photo had a glare, and support kept sending the same automated reply.
Second phase blew by in three sessions once I accepted their lot sizing rule as a sanity check. Challenge was passable with a conservative swing approach on indices, not just high-frequency scalping.
Clear escalation path on their support page meant my rule breach appeal reached a senior reviewer the same day.
Risk desk explained that my breach was a stop placed inside the news window and showed me the server timestamp. Finally a prop firm where the risk team explains what you did wrong instead of just closing the account.
Firm respects their own posted rules which sounds trivial until you have been burned by one that did not.
Live feed is off from TradingView by one tick at random, which is enough to trigger a stop that should not have been hit.
My EA was approved within one business day after I sent the backtest and the strategy description. Scaled from 50k to 200k over four payout cycles and the scaling criteria were spelled out before I started.
Phase two targets were inflated by a hidden consistency check that calculates on daily P&L rather than cumulative P&L. Dashboard showed me at 2 percent daily loss when the risk team said I was at 4.9 percent, and they went with their number.
Allowed overnight gold holds through CPI week provided I kept size below the news-trading cap, which was clear. Finally hit a payout cycle where the processing time matched the time quoted in the contract.
Minimum trading days moved up from three to five after I had already structured my strategy around the posted number. Challenge reset was still charged to my card after I had been told via chat that it would be waived for a verified payment issue.
Payout structure of 80 percent base and 90 percent after six requests actually incentivizes staying with them.
Mixed feelings on the trailing drawdown model since it locks at initial balance only once you hit a 10 percent profit buffer. Spreads during the London open are fine but widen aggressively at the New York close, which hurt a few of my late scalps.
Trailing drawdown stopped at my initial balance plus 10 percent, exactly as the contract described, so I knew where I stood.
Payout invoice went unanswered for 11 days after I provided the matching business details requested during KYC. Reset refund never arrived after I canceled within the 7-day window; three support tickets later it is still unresolved.