A Shadow Looms Over the Prop Trading Industry: It's Our Duty to Rescue It

By Osvaldo Guimaraes, Marketing Manager of Earn2Trade

A handful of crypto firms have long been fighting a tedious battle to build a positive image for the digital asset industry. Yet, despite their efforts, if you Google "crypto scam" today, you will get over 220 million results—from projects having Ryan Gosling as their lead graphic designer to ICOs vanishing as quickly as they have emerged—even the SEC started joking about the situation.

When the crypto industry burst onto the scene, like any individual involved in the financial markets, I was curious to learn more about it. I remember a conversation I had with a friend: "If you decide to invest, find an exchange that makes cashing out as easy as putting your money in," he told me. 

At the time, this sounded weird to me. I remember imagining what it must feel like not to be able to withdraw your hard-earned profits – it was basically a theft! This nasty feeling was so strong that it deterred me from the niche. 

A few years later, I joined the prop trading industry – a sophisticated domain reserved for serious professional traders. I loved how simple yet transformative the concept was – a trader with theoretical knowledge but lacking hands-on experience, would undergo rigorous training in a paper trading account, followed by an evaluation program where the prop firm would assess their trading skills based on a set of strict rules. If successful, the prop firm would grant the trader real capital and allow them to retain as much as 80% of the profits they have earned with it. Withdrawals were straightforward, allowing successful traders to seamlessly enjoy the fruits of their labor. 

A rare win-win situation. 

Over the past seven years, Earn2Trade has helped thousands of beginners leap to a professional prop trading career. In 2023 alone, we helped fund over 700+ live accounts.

Throughout all this time, we have constantly maintained dialogue with our clients—through internal surveys, follow-ups with our success stories, or in public channels like TrustPilot or Discord, for example. This close connection has made it quite clear that being able to withdraw their hard-earned profits easily is among the most important things for our users—as it should be.

While this has more or less been the industry norm so far, it seems that things are changing. In a bid to attract more clients, some prop trading firms are flipping the model onto its head. Instead of sticking to rigorous training and evaluation programs to filter out the best and brightest traders and, later on, offer them straightforward withdrawals, they are now luring in users with the promise of easy entry and quick access to capital. 

This is when the real challenge begins. Some companies don't even provide genuine trading accounts. Instead, they leave traders in a perpetual simulation, effectively denying them the opportunity to become professionals. With others, the real test is withdrawing your funds rather than passing the trading evaluation.

Witnessing this change reminded me of the conversation I had with my friend a few years back—remember the one about the importance of finding a crypto exchange that will allow you to cash out easily? 

However, this time, I am not watching from the sidelines. And while I can't control the situation, I can promise that Earn2Trade will remain faithful to our belief that trading isn't for everyone – we won't open the doors to anyone just so we can quickly close them behind. It is in our name – we believe that one should earn the right to become a trader. Once they do, we will be there to support them on their journey to becoming professionals – with easy withdrawals from day one, no upfront fees from their pocket (the setup fee is deducted from the trader’s first profit withdrawal), and actively encouraging and even requiring successful traders to transition to live accounts and start earning money.

Regarding the industry, instead of learning from the mistakes that stained the crypto niche, we are leaning toward repeating them.

Warren Buffet has said it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. It is up to us to make sure these aren't the prop trading industry's five minutes.