Having been in the markets for over 10 years, I’ve come to know what to look for and what to avoid in the broker industry. And if you have the proper knowledge of a trading services company and its offerings, you can easily decide whether you want to put your money in or not. Recently, I’ve been hearing more about the so-called proprietary trading firms, or prop firms. At first glance, the idea of going through a trading challenge is nothing new. These have been gyrating around the markets for decades.
What’s different about these prop firms, however, is they go a few extra steps. They offer a thing called Funded Account Challenge. Essentially, funded trading accounts allow traders to use a pool of capital within the company as profits are split in a certain way. In other words, you don’t need to fund your account with a sizeable amount of money. Instead, you can open your account with a few hundred dollars and receive thousands of dollars from the prop firm to trade with.
This said I was actually intrigued by the offer presented at OspreyFX for several reasons. First, OspreyFX is an ECN broker. And if you’ve been deep-diving into what makes a broker reliable, you’d know an ECN broker is literally the real deal.
An ECN broker, like OspreyFX, only handles your trades as an intermediary between you and the broader financial markets. OspreyFX feeds orders directly through its liquidity providers and doesn’t take the other end of your trade. In this light, when you win, OspreyFX wins. The opposite of an ECN broker is a market maker, which takes the other side of your trade so that if you win, they lose. You’d better avoid these brokers. In that context, let me take you into why I think OspreyFX offers one of the best funded account schemes.
So, now that I knew OspreyFX couldn’t be playing against my interest, I was happy to see their trading conditions were reasonable and not too hyped.
OspreyFX’s Funded Account Challenge is made up of three different tiers. All three have specific requirements and rules you need to know. The first one offers a balance of $25,000 with seed money (your own funds) of $250. Your target is to hit a 10% gain in 10 to 30 days. Along the way, your max daily loss is 5%, while the max loss for the entire period is 12%. The leverage you get is 1:100. And the best part? If you succeed and bring back a profit of $2,500 (10%), the initial deposit of $250 is refunded.
The second one offers a balance of $50,000 which could be yours once you fund it with your own amount of $400. Trading conditions are identical to the first tier.
And the third one is the biggest funded account carrying $100,000. It could be operable once you deposit $700. Conditions are the same as the other two tiers.
If you’ve selected an account, what should you do to move forward and start the challenge? There are three main milestones, or stages, you need to go through. The first and the second one are demo accounts where you trade with OspreyFX’s funds. In other words, you go through the challenge twice: the first time you get familiarized with the platform and you have to meet the requirements as listed:
- Profit of 10% in 30 days
- Min trading days: 10
- Max overall loss of 12%
- Max daily loss of 5%
And the second stage is absolutely the same.
Once you have completed these two stages, you move on to the third stage: the real account. Here you are free to trade with the Funded Account. If you chose $25,000, you get your $250 refunded and have a freshly-opened account with real $25,000. The process is the same with the other two tiers: $50,000, and $100,000.
The third stage is where you start to trade with actual money. OspreyFX allows you to take 70% of profits as it gets the other 30%. You get paid weekly. And the max overall loss allowed is 12%, while the max daily loss allowed is 5%.
A few perks and benefits you get in trading with a Funded Account:
- You can trade with OspreyFX’s money, meaning you take absolutely no risk with your own money.
- You get paid weekly, so whatever your profits, you can have 70% of them each week.
- You get to trade in a variety of markets, including stocks, forex, commodities, and cryptocurrencies.
Do you want a forex-funded account? You got it. A funded account to trade crypto or stocks? OspreyFX got you covered.
If you’ve decided to join them, the sign-up process is simple and straightforward. The only few details OspreyFX asks are two names, and an e-mail. The funding itself, and this is important, is done through bitcoin (BTC). OspreyFX gives you a Bitcoin wallet address to which you should send the equivalent of $250, $400, or $700, depending on the tier you have chosen. And, voila! You have now signed up for the OspreyFX Funded Account Challenge.
This somewhat unconventional trading opportunity allows traders to work with a lot more than they can afford to invest. In practice, it offers a flurry of benefits, as described above, and carries no risk at all as the initial deposit is returned to you. You can test a strategy, try out new markets, or open huge positions. You can do whatever you like and still get away without leaving a financial dent in your own net worth.
If you want to learn more, take a look at the funded trader programs, which we consider to be the best available currently for interested traders to choose from.
