Crypto Prop Firms That Accept US Traders: Access and Rules

Finding a crypto prop firm that will take a US trader is the first filter, and it is a real one. Many prop firms serve Americans from companies based abroad, a shake-up in early 2024 changed which trading software US clients may use, and some platforms are still closed to US residents. The second filter is whether the firm actually pays. The third is whether its rules fit a market that trades through the weekend.

A note on who is writing. We are HyroTrader, a crypto prop firm that accepts US traders, and one of the three firms compared below. Our own facts come from our rules, pricing and Terms pages, and every fact about the other two comes from that firm's own website, read in October 2026. Where we give a view on US law, it is the view of a firm that sells to US traders, so weigh it accordingly.

The short version

• As far as we can tell, US traders can join crypto prop firms. No federal regulator licenses the tests these firms sell, which is why the question keeps coming up.
• HyroTrader is open to US traders. Some of our options run on a demo account at a crypto exchange, which a US resident may not be able to open. Hyro, our own platform, needs no exchange account.
• Check platform access at every firm. Some trading platforms are closed to US residents. BrightFunded, one of the firms below, has two such platforms out of three, and two of the third-party options we support are closed as well.
• Payouts are income you report yourself. We do not withhold tax or give tax advice.
• Our own catches: once you are funded, open positions are capped at twice the account, and one payout request covers profit of up to 5% of the account. Profit above that is cancelled, not carried over.

Are crypto prop firms allowed in the US?

As far as we can tell, yes. We know of no US rule that stops you from paying a firm based abroad for a trading test and receiving a share of the profit you make on a simulated account. We sell these tests ourselves, so treat that as an interested party's reading. It is not legal advice.

The question keeps coming up because no federal regulator licenses these tests as such. None of your money goes into a trading account: what you pay is the price of the test. The firm holds no trading funds of yours and sends no order to a real market, so it sits in a gray area rather than under a licence.

Two dated events shaped today's market. Until 2024 most prop firms ran on MetaTrader, the trading software most forex traders use. In February 2024, the trade publication Finance Magnates reported that MetaTrader's maker was cutting off prop firms that served US clients. According to the report, FTMO, one of the firms compared below, stopped taking new US registrations and told its US clients their accounts would move to different software. Other firms began moving to alternatives as well. FTMO's site now says clients in the United States use its services through an affiliated company. That history is why the software a US resident may use still differs from firm to firm.

Then, in October 2026, the chairman of the CFTC, the US derivatives regulator, wrote that leveraged crypto trading platforms sit squarely within the CFTC's jurisdiction, and that the agency cannot require crypto to trade on CFTC-registered venues without Congress. The statement is on the CFTC's site. In plain terms, the regulator claims authority over leveraged crypto trading but says it needs new law to move that trading onto US-registered venues. How any of it will apply to prop firms, whose accounts are simulated, has not been spelled out, so the gray area remains.

What a crypto prop firm gives a US trader

A crypto prop firm, short for proprietary trading firm, gives traders who pass its test a large account to trade and pays them a large share of the profit they make on it. The only money of your own at risk is the payment for the test. It works in four steps:

1. You buy a challenge, the paid test, at an account size you choose.
2. You reach a profit target without breaking two loss limits, one per day and one overall.
3. You verify your identity and receive a funded account of the same size.
4. You request payouts from your profit, and the firm pays you your share.

The accounts are simulated, and all three firms compared here say so on their own sites. At HyroTrader every account, in the test and after it, is a simulated (demo) account that follows live exchange prices. Your trades are never sent to the real market.

So where do payouts come from? From the firm. A payout is your agreed share of the simulated profit, paid in real money out of the firm's own revenue, and at HyroTrader that revenue comes from test fees.

That is the honest reason the test is strict. Every payout is real money paid on a simulated result, so a firm has to be selective about who gets a funded account, and many traders do not pass. It is also why a payout record you can check matters more than any promise.

The value to you is account size. A $5,000 personal account keeps every position small, while a funded $100,000 account lets you trade at a professional size with your downside capped at the price of the test.

Five terms the comparison uses

The three firms, and how each handles US traders

HyroTrader is our pick for traders whose main market is crypto. BrightFunded suits traders who want several markets in one account. FTMO has the longest record. All three accept US traders in some form, and the form is the thing to check.

We compared them on what each firm publishes about itself: access for US residents, the crypto contracts on offer, the test and its loss limits, position size, and payout terms. Nothing here is a test we ran ourselves. We list only our own prices, further down, because they are the only ones we can vouch for on the day you read this.

HyroTrader: for traders whose main market is crypto

We launched HyroTrader in 2023 and operate from Dubai. HyroTrader is open to traders in the United States. Our Terms list the prohibited countries, the United States is not among them, and no US state appears on the list.

Our accounts trade one kind of contract, the USDT perpetual future: more than 700 of them on the Bybit exchange and on Hyro, our own platform, and more than 80 on the BloFin exchange. Most are crypto, and Hyro also lists stock prices, gold, silver and oil as the same kind of contract.

For a US trader the simple choice is Hyro, because it needs no exchange account. It follows live Bybit market prices and uses TradingView charts. It also applies realistic fees and slippage, which is the gap between the price you expect and the price you get. Our other two options use a demo account that you open yourself at Bybit or BloFin. Whether a US resident can open one is decided by that exchange's own terms, so check with the exchange before you choose it. Two third-party trading screens we also support, Tealstreet and Tiger.com, are not available to US traders.

The test comes in three versions:

Zero-Step and One-Step are both single-phase tests. Despite its name, Zero-Step is still a test with a 10% target. It can be passed in one trading day, with tighter loss limits and a fee that is not refunded. One-Step needs at least five trading days. Every loss limit is static, and the funded account is the same size as the test you passed, from $5,000 to $200,000 (Zero-Step stops at $100,000).

During the test, no single day may count for more than 40% of the profit target on One-Step and Two-Step, and no single trade for more than 50% on Zero-Step. On a $10,000 One-Step account the target is $1,000, so at most $400 from any one day counts toward passing. The rest stays in your balance, and going over the cap cannot end your test.

What works in your favour:

• Payouts on request, with no waiting period, paid within 24 hours including weekends, in USDT or USDC, once your share is at least $100. There are no withdrawal fees.
• Payouts sent on the Solana blockchain carry a public transaction ID, and our transparency page links to each one.
• An 80% profit split, which we can raise up to 90% on One-Step and Two-Step at our discretion.
• Very short-term trading, bots and automated strategies are allowed as long as the strategy is your own. You can trade through news and hold over the weekend.

What to know before you buy:

• USDT perpetual futures only. There is no forex, no options and no spot trading, which is buying the coins themselves.
• In the test you get the platform's full leverage, up to 150x on BTC and ETH. On a funded account all open positions together may not exceed twice the starting balance, which is less than BrightFunded or FTMO's Standard account allow. A method that passes the test with larger positions cannot be traded the same way once you are funded.
• One payout request covers profit of up to 5% of the starting balance. On a $100,000 account that is $5,000 of profit, of which your 80% share is $4,000. When the payout is paid, the account balance returns to its starting amount, and any profit above the 5% is cancelled rather than saved for the next request. So request a payout each time your profit reaches 5%.
• Scaling, which means being given a larger account, is reviewed case by case once your total profit has reached 20% of the account, counted across all your payouts. It never goes beyond $200,000 per trader.
• Identity verification comes after you pass, before the funded account and before any payout. Read the prohibited-country list in our Terms before you buy, so nothing surprises you at that stage.

BrightFunded: for several markets in one account

BrightFunded is headquartered in Dubai and covers forex, indices and commodities alongside 48 crypto pairs. It runs on three trading platforms. US residents cannot use two of them, MetaTrader 5 and cTrader, which leaves the third, DXtrade, for a US trader.

It offers accounts up to $400,000, a profit split of up to 100%, crypto leverage of 5x and crypto trading over the weekend. Payouts are weekly, in USDC or by bank transfer in euros. Its three plans each need five minimum trading days per stage and have no time limit.

Two things to check. Its 1-Step plan uses a trailing maximum loss. And high-frequency trading, grid trading, arbitrage and high-speed automated or AI tools are prohibited, with restrictions around major news releases.

FTMO: for the longest record

FTMO has operated since 2015 and offers accounts from $10,000 to $200,000, with a scaling plan that runs to $2,000,000 across all of a trader's accounts. Its site says clients in the United States use its services through an affiliated company, so ask FTMO which company you would be contracting with and which trading software it provides.

Its 2-Step Challenge asks for 10% and then 5%, under a 5% daily and 10% static maximum loss, with at least four trading days and no time limit. It pays 90% on 1-Step accounts and 80% rising to 90% on 2-Step accounts, and the first payout can be requested from the fourteenth day after your first trade.

Two things to check. Crypto is offered as 30 CFDs, priced by FTMO's platforms, with leverage of 3.33x on its Standard account type and 1x on Swing, the type meant for holding trades longer. And on funded Standard accounts no orders are executed for two minutes either side of selected news releases.

Comparison table (2026)

Terms as of October 2026; check each firm's own page before you buy.

Read the table by your own priority. BrightFunded offers a larger starting account than we do, both other firms have larger scaling plans, and BrightFunded and FTMO's Standard account allow larger positions once you are funded. We offer by far the most crypto contracts, payouts on request with no waiting period, and access for US traders on a platform that needs no exchange account.

What a US trader should know before paying

Identity checks

Legitimate firms check identity. We require it after you pass, before the funded account and before any payout, with a government photo ID, a selfie and proof of address. A firm that never asks who you are is showing you a compliance problem, not a convenience.

State rules

Our own Terms list prohibited countries and no US states. Another firm may exclude residents of particular states in its terms, so look for a state list before you buy, and if there is none, ask support in writing. Finding out after you have paid is the expensive way to learn it.

If a firm does not pay

You are contracting with a company abroad. With us, the Terms are governed by the law of Ras Al Khaimah and the United Arab Emirates, and HyroTrader is not a broker and is not regulated as one. No US regulator stands behind the agreement. That is the plain reason a payout record you can check matters. Ours is on our transparency page, where each Solana payout links to its transaction. Ask any other firm for the same kind of record before you pay.

Taxes

A payout is not a wage. You are not the firm's employee, so you should expect no W-2, and a firm based abroad may not send you any tax form at all. Reporting the income is your job.

If your payouts count as self-employment income, the self-employment tax applies on top of income tax. The rate is 15.3%, made up of 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare, and it applies once net earnings from self-employment reach $400, as the IRS self-employment tax page sets out. Whether that is the right treatment in your case is a question for a tax professional, ideally before your first payout.

Our payouts arrive as USDT or USDC in your own crypto wallet, and you convert them to dollars yourself on an exchange available to you. Ask the same professional how that conversion is treated, and keep a record of every test payment and every payout with its date.

How to choose the right crypto prop firm

Start with the contracts and the prices

If the coins you trade are not on a firm's list, nothing else about that firm matters. Then ask where the prices come from and how fees and slippage are calculated. Very short-term methods are the most sensitive to this, because small differences in the price you get can decide whether the strategy works at all.

Add up the whole cost

Compare more than the entry price. As an illustration with made-up numbers, a $499 test with no refund and a 75% split can cost more over a year than a $699 test that is refunded and pays 85%: on $10,000 of profit, the split alone is a $1,000 difference. A monthly platform fee adds up as well. One of $149 a month is $1,788 a year that has to be earned back before you keep anything.

Read scaling as a policy

The largest account a firm allows per trader, and how you qualify for an increase, set the ceiling on your income. A firm should state when you may ask for an increase, who decides, and the maximum per trader. Ours reads: once your total profit has reached 20% of the account, counted across all your payouts, and the account is in profit when you ask, you may request a review. The increase is at our discretion, and the ceiling is $200,000.

Confirm your strategy is allowed

Rules buried in the terms can rule out a whole method: bans on very short trades, automation or trading through news. Read the complete rules before you buy, email support a specific question about your method, and keep the written answer.

What our tests cost

Our list prices in October 2026:

That one payment is the whole cost, with no monthly or hidden fees, and checkout often shows a discount on top. On One-Step and Two-Step the payment is returned with your first payout. On Zero-Step it is a fee that is not refunded.

If you fail a test, the payment is not returned and a new attempt means buying a new test at the listed price. Budget for more than one attempt. The other cost is time: three failed attempts of a month each and a fourth that passes add up to four months before a funded account.

Tips for passing prop firm challenges

The test is a real test of risk management, and many traders do not pass it. The habits below are the ones that separate a pass from another entry payment.

Learn the loss limits before the target

A breached limit ends the attempt at once, while a missed target only costs time. A static 10% maximum loss on a $100,000 account means your account value may never fall below $90,000, whatever you made in between. A trailing limit moves that line up as the account grows, so after a good run you have no more room than you started with. Our limits are static, and the daily limit resets at 00:00 UTC.

Work out your largest position before every trade. If your daily limit is 5% and you risk more than 2% on one trade, you leave little room for a second position or an ordinary swing.

Treat it as a risk test

A 10% target does not call for aggression. Half a percent a day for twenty trading days reaches it, and that steadiness is what firms select for. With no deadline you never need a marginal trade and never need to trade a dead week.

Read the rules of the specific firm

General advice only goes so far. Check how the daily loss is measured and when it resets, whether you may hold over weekends and through news, any minimum time in a trade, position limits, and which contracts are allowed. Confirm anything unclear with support and keep the reply.

Final verdict: choosing your path to a funded account

Start with access, because a firm you cannot use on a platform you like is no use at all, and then let the three sort themselves.

If crypto is your main market, HyroTrader gives you the most crypto contracts of the three, payouts on request, a public payout record, and open access for US residents on a platform that needs no exchange account. Know its two catches before you buy: positions are capped at twice the account once you are funded, and profit above 5% of the account per payout request is cancelled. If you want several markets in one account, larger positions or a larger starting account, read BrightFunded's terms for DXtrade. If the longest record matters most, ask FTMO's US company what it offers.

Passing is not guaranteed at any of them. For disciplined traders willing to work inside firm loss limits, funded trading pays a share of profit made at an account size that would otherwise take years to build. Choose a firm that is open to you and pays verifiably, add up the whole cost, and check that your strategy is allowed. If you want more than three firms side by side, our crypto prop firm comparison covers the wider field on the same points.

If you trade crypto from the United States, start a challenge on Hyro, with no exchange account needed and payouts within 24 hours of a request.

Note: the targets, loss limits, trading day counts, prices and payout terms quoted above are HyroTrader's as of October 2026, and the trading rules page is the current, binding version.