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Crypto prop firm rules, explained
Profit target, daily loss, max loss, trading days, consistency and prohibited strategies: what each rule means, with the amounts on a 10K account.
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Crypto prop firms use similar names for their rules. What differs is how each rule is measured. Here is each of ours, with the amounts on a Classic 1-Step 10K account. The rules page shows every model, with the formula behind each rule, generated from the published ruleset.
Profit target
Reach a profit target of 8% of the starting balance: $800 on a 10K account. The target is measured on closed trades, so open profit counts once you close the position.
Daily loss limit
The daily floor is the higher of balance and equity at 00:00 UTC, minus 4% of the starting balance. On a 10K account that is $400 of room each day.
The room is a share of the starting balance, so it is the same amount every day: profit made yesterday is not room you can lose today. Equity, open positions included, must stay at or above the floor at every moment. How the daily loss floor moves follows it through winning and losing days, and daily drawdown vs max drawdown shows when each floor ends an account.
Max loss limit
Equity may never fall below the starting balance minus 8%, a floor $800 below the start on a 10K account. The floor is static: measured from the starting balance, it never moves. Static vs trailing drawdown compares it with the trailing designs some firms use.
Minimum trading days
Trade on at least 3 separate UTC days. A day counts once it has one fill.
Consistency
On Classic 1-Step your best day may be at most 40% of the total profit when you pass. If one day is larger, the target rises until it is not; the consistency rule works through the arithmetic. On the funded account of both models, a best day of at most 40% of the profit applies to each payout window.
Closing to pass, and inactivity
A phase completes only with no open position. An account with no fill for 30 days ends; there is no other time limit.
Leverage and fees
Leverage is capped at 5x on BTC and ETH and 3x on SOL. Fees are 0.05% of notional for taker fills and 0.02% for maker fills.
What does not fail an account
- A wick on one exchange. Breaches use a composite of the Bybit and Hyperliquid marks, and when the two disagree a breach goes to review instead. Why a breach uses a composite mark explains it.
- An exchange outage. Trading on that symbol pauses, and no breach is evaluated on a stale price.
- A payout. It is deducted from the balance and from the day's anchor, so it never counts as a loss.
Prohibited strategies
Hedging across accounts, copy trading between different people, latency arbitrage on stale prices, holding several identities, and closing and reopening around the daily reset to move the floor. Automated checks only flag trades; a person reviews every flag and tells you the outcome and the rule it rests on. The rules page defines each one.
Rule changes
Your account keeps the ruleset version it was bought with. A change against you never applies to an account you already hold; a change in your favour may, and you are told when it does.
Try the numbers
The drawdown simulator runs a sequence of daily results through the same rule functions the engine uses, and the position size calculator shows how much of a day's room a stop would use.
Related
- Daily drawdown vs max drawdownTwo loss floors, measured differently: one resets every day, one never moves. Two worked examples show which one ends an account, and when.
- Static vs trailing drawdownTwo accounts with the same max loss can have very different room. What static, end-of-day and intraday trailing drawdown mean, and which one we use.
- The consistency rule and minimum trading daysWhy one big day raises the target instead of failing you, how the effective target is computed, and what counts as a trading day.
- DrawdownDrawdown is the fall in an account from a reference point; prop firms turn it into loss floors that must not be crossed.