FTMO Crypto Trading: Leverage, Limits, an FTMO Alternative

You pass an FTMO Challenge trading EURUSD and the indices, you get funded, and then you try to run the crypto strategy you actually care about. The coins are there, 30 of them. But the altcoin you wanted is not on the list, and the profit you made on Monday cannot be requested until the fourteenth day after your first trade. None of that is a flaw in FTMO. It is a multi-market firm's rulebook applied to a market it added later.

A note on who is writing. We are HyroTrader, a prop firm built for crypto traders, so this comparison is written by one of the two firms in it. A prop firm (short for proprietary trading firm) gives traders who pass its paid test a large account to trade and pays them most of the profit. Every FTMO fact below comes from FTMO's own website, read in October 2026, and we say plainly where FTMO offers more than we do.

The short version

• FTMO does offer crypto: 30 coins as CFDs, which are contracts that follow a coin's price. Leverage is 1:3.33 on its Standard account type and 1:1 on its Swing account type.
• Both firms run simulated accounts and pay out in real money. What differs is what the account follows: FTMO's platforms quote 30 coins, while a HyroTrader account follows a crypto exchange's prices on more than 700 contracts at Bybit and on our own platform, and more than 80 at BloFin.
• FTMO offers more on size: a scaling plan to $2,000,000, and larger total positions on a funded Standard account.
• HyroTrader pays sooner: within 24 hours of a request, where FTMO opens the first payout on the 14th day after your first trade.
• Our rules have catches of their own. 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.

FTMO versus HyroTrader for crypto at a glance (2026)

Four terms make the table easier to read. Standard and Swing are FTMO's two account types, and Swing is the one for holding trades longer, at lower leverage. A static loss limit is a fixed line, while a trailing one follows your best balance upward. Zero-Step, One-Step and Two-Step are our three versions of the test. Hyro is our own trading platform.

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

On size, FTMO offers more: a scaling plan to $2,000,000 and larger total positions on a funded Standard account. On time limits and weekend crypto trading the two are level. We offer more on the things specific to crypto: the number of contracts, exchange prices, and payouts on request, each covering profit of up to 5% of the account.

Does FTMO allow crypto trading?

Yes. FTMO lists 30 cryptocurrencies, among them Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and Dogecoin, and you can trade them on an FTMO account. Its symbols page shows trading hours for every one of them on Saturday and Sunday too, with a note that weekend hours vary by platform around scheduled maintenance.

What you trade is a CFD, short for contract for difference. A CFD pays you the change in a coin's price without you owning the coin, and the price you trade is the one FTMO's platform quotes. The account itself is a demo account in a simulated environment, which FTMO states plainly on its own site.

A HyroTrader account is simulated too, so the difference is which prices the account follows. Ours follows the prices and the contract list of a crypto exchange. You trade perpetual futures, contracts that track a coin's price with no expiry date and the standard way crypto is traded with leverage, and the coins, the price moves and the fees match what you see on that exchange.

For a crypto trader, FTMO's limits are the list of 30 coins and one rule on funded Standard accounts: no orders may be executed for two minutes before and after selected news releases. The Swing account lifts that rule, but it exists only within the 2-Step Challenge and cuts crypto leverage to 1:1.

FTMO crypto leverage: 1:3.33, or 1:1 on a Swing account

FTMO's leverage on every crypto CFD is 1:3.33 on a Standard account and 1:1 on a Swing account, according to its symbols page. Leverage is how large a position can be compared with the money backing it. At 1:3.33, also written 3.33x, a $100,000 account can hold about $333,000 of crypto at most. On a Swing account it can hold $100,000.

In a HyroTrader test you get the platform's full leverage: up to 150x on BTC and ETH on Bybit and BloFin, and lower on most other pairs. On Hyro the maximum depends on the pair and reaches 100x or more on some. The order screen shows it.

Once you are funded, two limits apply together. All open positions may not exceed twice the starting balance, and the margin behind them, the money set aside to back them, may not exceed 25% of it. On a $100,000 funded account that is $200,000 of open positions, backed by at most $25,000 of margin. The 2x is a cap on position size against the account. The leverage setting on each trade is a separate thing, and because of the margin limit, holding the full $200,000 means setting it to 8x or more. A first breach brings a warning and a second ends the funded account.

So, plainly: once funded, an FTMO Standard account allows larger total positions than ours, about $333,000 against $200,000 on a $100,000 account, and an FTMO Swing account allows smaller ones. If your method needs positions larger than twice the account, ours is the wrong account for it. That holds even if the method passes our test, where the cap does not apply.

Leverage is a ceiling, never a target. Whatever the ceiling, the daily loss limit does not care how a loss happened.

Company background and focus

FTMO has operated since 2015. It built its business on forex and CFD traders and added crypto later, as one market beside forex, indices, commodities and stocks.

We launched HyroTrader in 2023, after starting to build it in 2022. We began in Prague, where we still keep an office, and now operate from Dubai. We count ourselves the first crypto prop firm to let traders run a test on their own exchange demo account, starting with Bybit in 2023. Crypto is the core of the product: the rules, the platforms and the support are written for it, and the Hyro platform adds tokenized stocks and metals.

Account sizes, scaling and price

FTMO's Challenge accounts run from $10,000 to $200,000. Its scaling plan raises an account by 25% every four months if you have traded four months on the same account, made at least 10% net profit in that period, received at least two payouts and hold a positive balance. The ceiling is $2,000,000 across all your accounts.

Our accounts run from $5,000 to $200,000, with Zero-Step stopping at $100,000. One trader can hold up to $200,000 in funded accounts. 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 scaling review, and any increase is decided case by case. There is no automatic ladder, and nothing goes beyond $200,000 per trader.

If a path to seven figures is the point, FTMO has one and we do not. FTMO also sells accounts with no test, on terms separate from the Challenge terms compared here. Every HyroTrader account starts with a test.

On price, a $5,000 test with us costs $59 to $89 depending on the version, and a $100,000 test costs $579 to $949. We have listed only our own prices, because they are the only ones we can vouch for on the day you read this. Compare them with FTMO's checkout price before you decide.

Profit split and payouts

FTMO pays 90% of profit on a 1-Step account and 80% on a 2-Step account, rising to 90% when its scaling plan's conditions are met. We pay 80% on every version, and on One-Step and Two-Step we can raise it up to 90% at our discretion, never automatically.

Both firms pay real money on simulated results. With us, a payout is your agreed share of the simulated profit, paid out of our own revenue, which comes from test fees.

The bigger difference is when the money reaches you. Say you are funded on a $100,000 account, place your first trade on the 1st of the month, and are $2,000 in profit by the 3rd.

• With us, you close your positions and request the payout on the 3rd. Your 80% share, $1,600, is paid within 24 hours, weekends included, in USDT or USDC, with no withdrawal fees.
• At FTMO the request opens on the fourteenth day after your first trade, around the middle of the month. FTMO then reviews the account within one to two business days and typically pays within a further one to two business days, by bank wire, card transfer, Skrill or crypto. On a 2-Step account your share is the same 80%, or $1,600. On a 1-Step account it is 90%, or $1,800, provided no single day made more than half of that profit.

One of our rules is worth knowing before the first payout. One 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%, and never let it build beyond that.

On entry payments the firms are close. FTMO refunds the 2-Step fee with your first payout and does not refund the 1-Step fee. We return the One-Step and Two-Step payment in full with your first payout, and the Zero-Step fee is not refunded.

Payouts we send on the Solana blockchain carry a public transaction ID, and our transparency page lists them with a link to each transaction. By our own figures, we have paid more than $8 million to funded traders.

Instruments and platforms

FTMO's list covers forex, indices, commodities, stocks and 30 crypto CFDs, all on the trading platforms it provides. That is a wide list for a trader who works several markets and a short one for a crypto specialist who wants the altcoin that moved last night.

We trade USDT perpetual futures only. That means no spot trading (buying the coins themselves), no options and no forex, and it means the crypto list is the exchange's own. You choose where to trade when you set up the test:

HyroTrader is open to traders in the United States. Hyro needs no exchange account, which makes it the simple choice there.

The FTMO figures in this comparison come from its main site, and a US trader gets different ones. FTMO serves US clients through a separate US site, and when we read it in October 2026 it listed one crypto contract: Bitcoin, at 4x leverage, open Monday to Friday and closed at the weekend.

Trading rules: time, loss limits, weekends and news

Neither firm puts a deadline on its test. At HyroTrader the only timing rule is activity: an account with no closed trade for 30 days is closed.

Loss limits are where the detail matters. FTMO's 2-Step limits are static, 5% a day and 10% in total, and its 1-Step uses a 3% daily limit with a 10% total that trails at the end of each day. Every one of our loss limits is static, and the same loss limits carry into the funded account. Our Two-Step matches FTMO's 2-Step at 5% and 10%. Our One-Step and Zero-Step are tighter in total, at 6% and 5%.

Zero-Step and One-Step are both single-phase. Despite its name, Zero-Step is still a test with a 10% target. It can be passed in one trading day, and its fee is not refunded. One-Step needs at least five trading days.

On strategies the two are similar on paper. FTMO allows discretionary trading, algorithms and trading robots, and bans exploiting price errors or delays and hedging between connected accounts. We allow very short-term trading, bots and AI agents as long as the strategy is your own, and prohibit arbitrage, copy trading, purchased third-party systems and martingale, which means increasing size after a loss to win it back.

Both firms have a rule that stops one outsized day from carrying the result. Traders call it a consistency rule. Ours applies in the test only: 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, going over the cap cannot end your test, and our funded accounts have no such rule.

FTMO's version sits on its 1-Step. Your best day may not be more than 50% of your total profit, both to pass the Challenge and to be paid from the funded account. Like ours, it is not a breach: you keep trading until the share falls. FTMO's 2-Step objectives list no such rule.

Both firms let you trade crypto at the weekend, so weekends do not separate them. News does: FTMO blocks orders around selected releases on funded Standard accounts, and we have no such window. If you are also looking at other firms, ask each one about weekends before you buy, because the answer depends on what that firm's contracts are built on.

Where HyroTrader fits a crypto specialist better

The contract list is the exchange's own: more than 700 perpetual futures at Bybit and on Hyro, and more than 80 at BloFin, rather than a selection of 30 CFDs. If the coin you trade is not among FTMO's 30, that settles it.

The prices are the exchange's too. Your account follows the same prices you already watch, on the exchange's own screen or on Hyro, which is why what you learn in the test carries over.

Most of the environment stays the same when you pass: the same prices, the same platform and the same loss limits. Two things change. Payouts begin, and the cap on total position size described above replaces the platform's full leverage. Losses stay on the simulated account, and you never owe us anything. We state the model plainly: all trading is simulated, the firm earns from test fees, and payouts are paid in real money.

Payouts keep the market's pace: on request, within 24 hours, in stablecoins a crypto trader already uses. Support runs 24 hours a day on weekdays by email, live chat and WhatsApp, and the free HyroTrader Academy covers risk management, market structure and passing a crypto prop firm test.

The interviews we publish with funded traders show what the discipline looks like in practice. Nealeem earned more than $73,000 in payouts across several HyroTrader accounts after failing five tests, trading price action at 0.8% risk per position. The story is also a fair warning: the test is a real test of risk management, and many traders do not pass it.

Which should you choose

If you trade forex and indices and want crypto as a side position, stay with FTMO. Its record since 2015, its payout methods and its scaling plan to $2,000,000 are real advantages for a multi-market trader, and its Standard account allows larger total positions than ours.

If crypto is what you trade, and especially if the coins you trade are not among FTMO's 30, choose HyroTrader. The account follows the contracts you already use, at the prices you already watch, and pays you within a day of asking.

Some traders run both, one for each market. If you want to see more than two firms side by side, our crypto prop firm comparison sets the wider field against the same points.

If the crypto side of your trading deserves its own account, start a challenge on your own Bybit or BloFin demo account or on Hyro.

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.