Crypto Prop Firms That Allow Bots and AI Agents, Compared

If you trade with a bot, a script or an AI assistant, the first question about a prop firm is whether that software may trade your challenge. The challenge is the firm's paid trading test, and passing it gets you a funded account (an account on which the firm pays you a share of the profit you make). Firms rarely answer the software question with a plain yes or no. Three things decide it: whose strategy the bot runs, how it reaches the account, and which ways of trading the firm bans no matter how the orders are placed.

We run HyroTrader, one of the eight prop firms with crypto accounts compared below, so our own rules sit beside the others. Each rival rule comes from that firm's own pages, and ours come from our trading rules and our funded trader agreement.

Key takeaways

Of the eight prop firms with crypto accounts compared here, four allow bots on a challenge: HyroTrader, Crypto Fund Trader, E8 Markets and BrightFunded, while For Traders' help centre bans autonomous bots and its FAQ still says EAs are allowed.
Bitfunded and Kraken Prop require every order to be placed by hand, and Breakout publishes no rule on bots either way.
On bought bots the four split, because only E8 Markets and BrightFunded say outright that third-party EAs are allowed, each with conditions.
HyroTrader is the only firm here that publishes a route for AI agents, through an agent token on its own Hyro trading platform.

What a prop firm's bot rule decides

A bot rule settles three things: whose strategy the bot may run, how it reaches your account, and which ways of trading are banned. Any one of them can rule a bot out, so it helps to check them in turn.

Whose strategy the bot runs

Automated trading, often called algo trading, means a program places the orders. A bot or a script is a program that places orders when its conditions are met, and MetaTrader calls the same kind of program an EA (expert advisor).

Among firms that allow bots, the line usually falls at ownership. The challenge is meant to test your trading, much like an exam. A strategy sold to many buyers puts the same trades on many accounts, so it tells the firm nothing about you. Some firms still accept a bought bot that respects the loss limits, while others allow only a strategy you built. Copy trading and paid signal services usually sit on the same side of that line, because the trades still come from someone else.

How the bot reaches the account

How a bot connects depends on the platform the challenge runs on. On MetaTrader and similar terminals, an EA runs inside the terminal itself. On an exchange-connected challenge, the bot sends orders to a demo account at the exchange through an API key (an access key that lets software trade an account). The guide to how API keys and their permissions work covers that setup.

A rule that allows bots helps only if the platform you trade on accepts them. Some firms allow automation on one platform and not on another, and some take manual orders only.

What is banned however you trade

A challenge account is normally a demo account. It takes its prices from the live market, but no order ever reaches that market, so a fill can arrive without the slippage (the gap between the price you expected and the price you got) that a real order would suffer.

That is why some ways of trading are banned whether a person or a program places the orders. A strategy that profits only because the slippage is missing would fail in a live market, and so would one that profits from a price feed that updates later than the market (latency arbitrage). High-frequency trading (very large numbers of orders within fractions of a second) and tick scalping (many trades opened and closed within moments) are banned on the same grounds at several of the firms below.

Where AI agents fit

An AI agent is an AI assistant that places trades itself instead of only suggesting them. Assistants such as Claude reach outside tools through MCP (Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting an assistant to another service). A firm's rules may not name agents at all, and where they do not, an agent that places orders counts as a bot under the same rule.

The label "AI" also covers very different software, from models that retrain on market data to plain if-then rules. The guide to what the AI label on a trading bot usually means sorts them out, and the difference matters at a firm that bans AI built to predict price before other traders react.

Bot and AI-agent rules at eight crypto prop firms

Four of the eight firms allow bots, and each row shows where that firm draws its lines, in the firm's own terms.

Firm	Bots and EAs	Where a bot connects	AI agents	Main limits for a bot
HyroTrader	Allowed, your own strategy only	Your own Bybit or BloFin demo account by API key, or our Hyro platform by agent token	Allowed, own strategy only. The ready-made agent connection (agent token and MCP) runs on Hyro	No bought or third-party systems, copy trading or signals. No latency, arbitrage or ultra-fast order exploits. On Bybit, profit from fills impossible in a live market counts at 40%. Funded open positions up to twice the account. Profit above 5% per payout request is lost
Crypto Fund Trader	Allowed, except the types it bans. No third-party strategy marketed to pass	MetaTrader 5 and Match-Trader, and on its Bybit route the assigned API connection may not be modified	Not stated	No high-frequency trading, tick scalping, or bots that exploit the demo account (news spikes, arbitrage, opposite trades across accounts)
E8 Markets	Allowed (algos, EAs, bots), third-party EAs included if other traders do not run the same one	Not stated by platform. Its E8 One and E8 Pro programs include perpetual futures	Not stated	No more than half of trades held under one minute. Up to 2,000 order requests and 2,000 positions a day
For Traders	Not allowed per its help centre (autonomous bots and EAs prohibited, EAs only to support manual decisions), though its FAQ still says EAs are allowed	MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker or cTrader	Analysis allowed, autonomous execution restricted (firm blog)	No copied signals, third-party account management, or latency and tick arbitrage
BrightFunded	Allowed, third-party EAs included	MetaTrader 5 or cTrader. Not DXtrade, where automated trading is not supported	Banned where the tool trades faster than a person can, or predicts price before others react	No high-frequency trading, grid trading, arbitrage or tick scalping
Bitfunded	Not allowed	Manual orders only	No, every trade by hand	Every trade placed by the account holder
Kraken Prop	Not allowed, no API access	Manual orders in Kraken Pro	No, orders placed manually	Every order through the trading interface
Breakout	No published rule	Not stated	Not stated	No off-the-shelf strategies marketed to pass, copied trade ideas or latency exploits

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

Running a bot or an AI agent at HyroTrader

At HyroTrader, bots, scripts and AI agents are allowed on every challenge as long as the strategy is your own, and our Hyro platform adds a ready-made connection for AI assistants. Our challenges trade USDT perpetual futures (futures contracts with no expiry date, settled in USDT).

Every account, from the challenge to the funded stage, is a simulated (demo) account on live market data. Payouts are real money. Each one is a contractual share of your simulated profit, paid out of our revenue from challenge sales.

Where your bot connects

You choose where your bot connects when you set up the challenge after purchase. On Bybit, it trades your own Bybit demo account over Bybit's API. On BloFin, it trades your own BloFin demo account over BloFin's API, with a key that has demo trading permissions and our IP addresses on its allow list.

On the Hyro platform, our own trading terminal, there is no exchange account and no exchange API key. A bot connects with an agent token (an access key for your Hyro account) that you create in your account settings, and fills are simulated against live Bybit prices with fees and slippage. Our overview of the platforms a challenge can run on compares every route.

That ready-made connection for an AI assistant runs on Hyro only, while on Bybit and BloFin any automation reaches the account through the exchange's own API key. You turn on two-factor authentication and create the token under Settings, then Agent tokens. After that, you add our MCP server and the token to Claude or another assistant that supports MCP. The token can give read access only or trading access as well, and you can revoke it at any time.

Bots on the Bybit route face one extra rule, because Bybit's demo environment does not simulate real slippage or liquidity depth (how much can be traded near the current price). A fill that would be impossible in a live market can be flagged, and only 40 percent of the profit from flagged trades then counts toward the target. You may also be asked to continue on Hyro, though a challenge is not failed for that reason alone.

The numbers to set in your bot

A $100,000 Two-Step (our challenge with two test phases) shows every limit a bot has to respect. The Phase 1 target is 10 percent and the Phase 2 target 5 percent. Every loss limit is a fixed amount worked out from the starting balance, which here is $5,000 a day and $10,000 in total. The daily limit is measured from your equity at 00:00 UTC each day, and neither limit moves with your open profit during the day.

Rule	On a $100,000 Two-Step	What it means for the bot
Daily loss limit (5%)	Equity (balance plus open profit or loss) may not fall more than $5,000 below the equity recorded at 00:00 UTC that day, open positions included	Stop trading for the day before the loss reaches $5,000
Maximum loss (10%)	Equity may never fall below $90,000	A hard floor the bot never trades through
Profit Distribution Rule	No single day counts for more than 40% of the target, which is $4,000 of the $10,000 Phase 1 target and $2,000 of the $5,000 Phase 2 target	Spread profit over several days. Profit above the cap stays in the account but does not count
Trading day	A UTC day on which you close a trade worth at least $5,000 whose profit or loss was at least 1% of its size, before fees	At least five such days in each phase
Funded exposure	Total margin (the collateral open positions tie up) up to $25,000, and total open position value up to $200,000	Cap size in code, because the first breach brings a warning and the second fails the funded account
Payout cap	Up to $5,000 of profit per request, $4,000 to you at the 80% split	Request a payout when profit reaches 5%. When a payout is paid, the balance resets to $100,000, so profit above the cap is lost

The account in this example costs $579, paid as a Refundable Challenge Deposit. It comes back in full with your first payout on the funded account, and if you fail, it is not returned. Once you are funded, payouts are on demand and paid within 24 hours of a valid request, in USDT or USDC (two stablecoins pegged to the US dollar).

Rival prices are not listed, because each firm sells several programs at several sizes and a fair price comparison needs a table of its own.

What your bot must not do

Because the challenge tests your trading, the strategy has to be yours. A ready-made or purchased bot that runs someone else's strategy is not allowed, and neither are copy trading, account mirroring or a third-party signal service. Exploits of the simulation are banned too, such as latency or arbitrage tricks and ultra-fast mass orders. A setup that breaks these rules can bring an account review, restrictions or disqualification.

A bot also has to respect two rules about size and accounts. One that raises its size after a losing trade to win the loss back is running a martingale, which is banned. Opposite positions on two of your accounts count as hedging across accounts, which is banned as well, while hedging inside one account is allowed.

A bot built for spot pairs or options cannot run on our challenges, because they trade USDT perpetual futures only.

Other crypto prop firms that allow bots

Three other firms in the comparison allow bots, each on conditions of its own, and For Traders' own pages disagree.

Crypto Fund Trader: bots on MetaTrader 5 or Match-Trader

Crypto Fund Trader runs challenges on MetaTrader 5, Match-Trader (two trading platforms) and the trader's own Bybit account. Its evaluation rules name the bot types it bans: high-frequency trading, tick scalping, and bots built to exploit the demo account, such as bots that trade news spikes, arbitrage or opposite trades across accounts.

Its terms also ban any third-party strategy marketed to pass the evaluation, so a bot bought for that purpose is out. On the Bybit route its rules say only that the assigned API connection may not be modified, and they say nothing about AI agents.

E8 Markets: third-party EAs, one strategy per trader

E8 Markets lists algos, EAs and bots among the tools you can use, and its E8 One and E8 Pro programs include perpetual futures. A third-party EA is allowed, but E8 may close accounts where several traders run the same one, which is why its help center recommends programming your own.

E8 also limits how fast a bot can trade, with daily caps on order requests and positions and a rule that no more than half of your trades may be held for under a minute. Every trade also has to be one that could be executed in a real market.

For Traders: bots banned in its help centre, EAs allowed in its FAQ

For Traders offers crypto alongside forex on MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker and cTrader. Its FAQ answers yes to EAs and trading bots, as long as the trading is your own, and bans copied signals, third-party account management and latency or tick-arbitrage exploits.

Its help centre bans automated bots and allows EAs only to support manual decisions, and a guide on its blog restricts fully automated execution, so both contradict the FAQ. If you plan to run a bot unattended there, ask the firm which rule applies before you buy.

BrightFunded: third-party EAs, but no AI prediction tools

BrightFunded allows EAs, third-party ones included, and warns that a bought EA may already run the same strategy on other traders' accounts. Automated trading is not supported on its DXtrade platform, so a bot runs on its other two platforms, MetaTrader 5 and cTrader.

Its list of banned strategies covers high-frequency trading, grid trading (a ladder of buy and sell orders at fixed intervals), arbitrage and tick scalping. It also bans automated software or AI built to trade faster than a person can, or to predict price before other traders react. Its own example is a bot that places and cancels orders within milliseconds, so the ban is about speed and mechanical exploits rather than EAs as such. If your bot trades often, ask the firm where it draws that line before you buy.

Firms that forbid bots or publish no rule

Three firms in the comparison either forbid bots or say nothing about them.

Bitfunded: manual orders only

Bitfunded runs its challenges on its own trading platform, and its rules ban bots, EAs, scripts and API automation outright. Every trade has to be placed manually by the account holder, which rules out an AI agent placing orders too.

Kraken Prop: no API access

Kraken Prop uses the same interface and trading tools as Kraken Pro, the exchange's trading app. It offers no API access on evaluation or funded accounts, so every order is placed manually through the trading interface.

Breakout: no published rule on bots

Breakout, a crypto prop firm Kraken bought in 2025, has rules of its own, separate from Kraken Prop's. Its program rules and its lists of banned practices say nothing about bots or API trading. They do ban off-the-shelf strategies marketed to pass the evaluation, copied trade ideas and latency exploits, so ask the firm before you connect anything automated.

Which prop firm fits your bot?

If your bot is your own code and trades perpetual futures through an exchange API, a HyroTrader challenge runs it on your own Bybit or BloFin demo account. Code it for realistic fills there, because on Bybit the profit from fills that would be impossible in a live market counts at only 40 percent. If you want an AI assistant to trade for you, our Hyro platform is the only ready-made agent connection among these firms, and its fills include slippage.

If you plan to run a bought EA, E8 Markets and BrightFunded say third-party EAs are allowed within their conditions, while HyroTrader does not allow them. Check which of their platforms takes a crypto bot before you buy, because E8 does not say and BrightFunded excludes DXtrade. Whichever firm you choose, code its loss limits and position caps into the bot before it trades, because the limits apply to every order, whatever placed it. At HyroTrader, two more rules belong in the code: keep funded open positions within twice the account size, and request a payout once profit reaches 5 percent of the account.

If your bot runs your own strategy, start a HyroTrader challenge and choose Bybit, BloFin or the Hyro platform at setup.

Note: each rival's rules above come from that firm's own pages, and firms change them often, so check the firm's page before you buy. Our prices and rule figures are our published values, and the trading rules page has the official, current version of every limit.