HyroTrader vs Kraken Prop: Fees, Rules, Payouts Compared

Kraken Prop is built into Kraken Pro, so it is the easiest prop program to start if you already trade there. HyroTrader is one of the crypto prop firms it is most often compared with. Both sell a paid test (Kraken calls it an evaluation, we call it a challenge) and fund the traders who pass, but they set their loss limits, costs and payouts up differently.

We run HyroTrader, so this comparison comes from one of the two firms in it. Kraken's terms below come from Kraken's own Kraken Prop page and support center as of October 2026, and ours from our trading rules and terms.

Key takeaways

• Kraken Prop and HyroTrader both fund crypto traders who pass a paid test, and they differ most on loss limits, leverage, trading costs and how payouts reach you.
• Kraken Prop is a single-phase evaluation in three plans inside Kraken Pro, with no consistency rule and no minimum trading days, and its cheapest plan has the tightest loss limit.
• HyroTrader offers three challenges on five platforms, and One-Step and Two-Step return your entry payment with your first payout. Once you are funded, though, we cap your open positions and what each payout request can cover.
• Every HyroTrader account, funded ones included, is simulated on live market data, and we pay your share in USDT or USDC to your own wallet. Kraken says its funded accounts trade real capital, and it pays into your Kraken account.

HyroTrader and Kraken Prop side by side

The table compares the two on a $100,000 account, the size most traders price first. Kraken sells three plans at each size, so its column gives one value per plan where the plans differ.

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

How does Kraken Prop work?

Kraken Prop is Kraken's prop trading program. It is built into Kraken Pro, the exchange's app for active traders, and it runs in two stages: you buy an evaluation and reach a profit target on a simulated account, then you trade a funded account on which Kraken pays you a share of the profit.

Part of Kraken Pro

If you already use Kraken Pro, there is nothing new to install. A Prop account sits next to your main Kraken account in the same interface, on the web and in the mobile app, and you switch between them with the account selector. Buying an evaluation needs only an email address and a country.

When you reach the target, Kraken closes your open positions and creates a funded account. It opens for trading once you have completed Kraken's identity verification, signed its Funded Trader Agreement and passed a short manual review.

Kraken's other prop products

Kraken runs two more prop products, which is why searches for Kraken Funded and Breakout often lead here. Kraken Funded is in the everyday Kraken app, where you buy and sell in dollar amounts with no added leverage and the account closes at a 3 percent loss. Breakout is a crypto prop firm that Kraken bought in 2025, and it keeps its own website and trading terminal. Kraken Prop is the one built for active traders, with a full trading terminal, more account sizes and higher leverage than Kraken Funded.

Where Kraken Prop is simpler

Kraken Prop's rules are short, and for some traders that is the main draw. There is no consistency rule, no minimum number of trading days and no time limit, so one strong day can pass the evaluation. The maximum loss is measured from the starting balance and never moves up with your profit, and Kraken lists no cap on how much profit one payout can cover.

Markets, leverage and platforms

Kraken Prop keeps you inside Kraken Pro with more than 60 pairs, while we offer five platforms and hundreds of pairs. The leverage gap narrows once you are funded, because our cap on total exposure is stricter than Kraken's leverage limit.

Pairs and platforms

With us, a challenge trades USDT perpetual futures (contracts that track a coin's price and never expire). There are more than 700 pairs on Bybit and on Hyro, our own platform, and more than 80 on BloFin. On Bybit or BloFin, the challenge runs on your own demo account at that exchange, a route we first built with Bybit in 2023. The Tealstreet and Tiger.com terminals run on Bybit's market data.

Kraken Prop lists more than 60 crypto pairs, all traded inside Kraken Pro. You can try any of our platforms first on a free 7-day trial, which runs on the same platforms as a paid challenge but has lighter rules of its own and pays nothing out. Kraken's prop pages list no free trial.

Leverage and the funded exposure limit

Leverage is where the two look furthest apart. During our challenges, leverage is whatever the platform offers for the pair, which on Bybit and BloFin means up to 150x on BTC and ETH and less on other pairs. Once you are funded, all your open positions together may not exceed twice the starting balance, and the margin they use may not exceed a quarter of it.

Kraken's plan tables list leverage of up to 5x, and since August 2026 BTC trades at up to 10x with a $1 million notional cap. During the challenge, our accounts allow far larger positions. Once you are funded, Kraken's 10x on BTC may let you carry more total exposure than our cap allows.

Bots and AI agents

If you trade with your own bot or an AI agent, only one of the two allows it. We accept bots, API clients and AI agents as long as the strategy is yours, and Hyro issues agent tokens (revocable keys that let an AI assistant read your account and place trades) for the purpose. Bought systems and strategies run by someone else are not allowed. Kraken Prop offers no API access, so every order on a Prop account is placed by hand.

How the evaluation rules compare

Both firms close an account that touches its loss limit, so the limits decide how much room a normal losing streak has. At both firms the same limits stay in force once you are funded.

Our three challenges

Each of our challenges has a profit target of 10 percent, and Two-Step adds a second phase with a 5 percent target. The three differ mainly in their loss limits and minimum trading days, as the table shows. All of our limits are static, which means they are fixed amounts set from the starting balance, so the room you start with is the room you keep.

Zero-Step is still a test. Like One-Step it has one phase, but it needs only one trading day instead of five, and in return it has the tightest limits of the three. A limit that tight needs a fixed risk per trade and a hard stop for the day, the habits one of our funded traders describes in an interview.

Kraken Prop's three plans

Kraken's three plans differ in how much loss they allow, so the plan you pick sets your room before your first trade. The maximum loss is 6 percent on Starter, 5 percent on Intermediate and 3 percent on Advanced. The daily limit is 3 percent on every plan, and Kraken measures it from your balance at 00:30 UTC each day, so the room grows after a winning day and shrinks after a losing one.

On Advanced, the overall limit is about the size of one day's limit, which means one bad day can end the evaluation. Kraken's trading fees count against both limits.

The consistency rule

A consistency rule caps how much of the profit target one day or one trade can supply, and here the two firms differ. Kraken Prop has none. Ours is the Profit Distribution Rule, and it applies during the evaluation only. On a $100,000 One-Step, the target is $10,000, so no single day can count for more than $4,000 of it. On Zero-Step the cap is per trade, at 50 percent of the target.

Profit above that share stays in the account and simply does not count toward the target. So the rule can cost you a few more trading days, and the account stays open. It no longer applies once you are funded.

What each challenge costs

The price on the page is not the whole cost, because our entry payment can come back and trading fees come out of the account at both firms.

The price on a $100,000 account

At $100,000, Kraken Prop costs $330 on Advanced, $545 on Intermediate and $800 on Starter. Ours costs $579 for Two-Step, $749 for One-Step and $949 for Zero-Step, before any discount at checkout. Here is how a failed first attempt works out on the two options closest in price, our Two-Step and Kraken's Intermediate plan:

• On our Two-Step, a failed first attempt costs $579, and that deposit is not returned.
• If you buy again and pass, you have paid $1,158 in total.
• The second $579 comes back with your first payout on the funded account, so once that payout is made the route has cost you $579. A pass alone does not return it.
• On Kraken's Intermediate plan, the same two attempts cost $1,090, and none of it comes back.

One-Step works the same way as Two-Step, with a Refundable Challenge Deposit that comes back with your first payout. Zero-Step takes a Challenge Fee instead, returned only if you cancel before the challenge starts, and Kraken's evaluation fee is not refundable once trading begins.

Trading costs

Trading costs come out of the account you are being tested on, so at both firms they count against the loss limits. Kraken Prop charges a commission of 0.04 percent of the trade's value on each side. It adds funding (a fee for keeping a position open) of 0.033 percent a day in total, charged in six parts every four hours.

On our Bybit and BloFin routes you pay the exchange's own fees. On Bybit's standard fee level that is 0.02 percent for an order that waits in the order book and 0.055 percent for one that fills at once. Hyro publishes no separate rate table, because fees and slippage (the gap between the price you expect and the price you get) are built into each fill. So trading has a running cost at both firms, and neither adds a monthly fee on top.

How payouts work and where the money comes from

Both firms pay on demand, so what differs is where the money lands, what one request can cover and what you can check yourself.

Where the money lands

Kraken pays your share into your main Kraken account in US dollars or USDG (a dollar stablecoin) as an internal transfer, and a payout review typically takes under 12 hours. From there, Kraken's normal withdrawal rules apply. We pay in USDT or USDC (two stablecoins pegged to the US dollar) straight to the wallet address you enter. The agreement commits us to paying within 24 hours of a valid request, weekends included.

Where payouts come from

Every HyroTrader account, from the challenge to the funded stage, is a simulated account on live market data, so no order reaches an exchange's order book. Payouts are real money, paid from our own funds as your agreed share of the simulated profit, and our revenue comes from challenge fees. Losses stay on the simulated account, so you never owe us money.

Kraken's evaluation is simulated as well, but Kraken says that on a funded account you trade real capital allocated by a company in the Kraken group. So in Kraken's description its funded stage trades the firm's real money, while ours stays simulated and pays your profit share in real money. Neither is a regulated investment service. Kraken calls Kraken Prop an unregulated service, and we are not a broker and never hold traders' money for trading.

The payout cap and the profit split

Our funded accounts come with a payout cap that Kraken does not have. One request can cover profit of up to 5 percent of the starting balance, which on a $100,000 account is $5,000, and you receive $4,000 of it at our 80 percent split. Any profit above the cap is cancelled when the payout is paid, so if your profit reaches $8,000 before you ask, $3,000 of it is lost. It pays to request a payout as soon as your profit reaches 5 percent, and the smallest payout is $100 after the split.

The split starts at 80 percent at both firms. Ours can rise to 90 percent on One-Step and Two-Step at our discretion as you grow, and it never rises automatically. Kraken sells the 90 percent split as an upgrade at purchase, for 20 percent more than the plan price.

Checking the record

A payout total that a firm reports about itself is only a claim, so the part you can verify counts most. Our payout dashboard shows $9,111,525 paid to funded traders since 2023, as of October 2026, with 99.1 percent of payouts sent within 24 hours of the request. Payouts sent on the Solana blockchain carry a public transaction link that anyone can open. A trader can hide their name and transaction ID, though, and payouts on other networks, such as Tron, are not published.

Kraken's payouts are internal transfers inside the exchange rather than blockchain transactions, so there is no public list of them to check. Their record rests on Kraken's standing as an exchange.

Who can sign up

Check where each firm accepts traders first, because it may rule one of them out. Kraken Prop is not offered to users in Canada, India or the UK. We accept traders worldwide, including the United States and the UK, except in the countries our Terms prohibit, such as Russia, Iran and North Korea. Where an exchange is not open to you, our Hyro platform needs no exchange account at all.

Neither firm asks for identity documents before you buy. We verify your identity after you pass and before your funded account opens, and Kraken asks for its full verification at the same point.

Which one to choose

Kraken Prop suits you if you already work in Kraken Pro, trade the major crypto pairs by hand and want the shortest rulebook. With no consistency rule and no minimum days it can be passed quickly, and its Starter and Intermediate plans leave reasonable room. On Advanced, one bad day can use up the whole limit, so it is worth sizing your trades for that before you start.

HyroTrader suits you if you want a wide choice of pairs and platforms, run a bot or an AI agent on your own strategy, or want the entry payment back after passing. Two limits on a funded account are worth knowing before you buy. Your open positions are capped at twice the starting balance, and each payout request covers profit of up to 5 percent of it, so you will request payouts often rather than letting profit build.

If our challenges fit how you trade, compare the three HyroTrader challenges and their prices. You can also try the platforms and the dashboard first on a free 7-day trial, with no card needed.

Note: Kraken's terms above come from Kraken's own pages as of October 2026 and can change, so check its Kraken Prop page before you buy. Our prices, targets, loss limits and payout terms are our published values as of October 2026, and the trading rules page has the current, binding version.