Funded Trader Markets: Information and detailed review

What Funded Trader Markets offers today

Funded Trader Markets (FTM) sells access to simulated trading programs rather than brokerage or investment accounts. Its terms state that Evaluation, Simulated Funded and Instant Funded accounts all use virtual capital; rewards are performance-based compensation, not returns from trades placed in a live market. The contracting company is FTM Funded Trader Markets LTD in Cyprus, while a Saint Lucia entity provides the simulated trading services.

The current purchase matrix contains five programs: 1 Step Nitro, 2 Step Plus, Instant Standard, Instant Pro and Instant Plus. Old pages and FAQs still describe Nitro X and promotional copy still mentions Nitro Static, but neither appears in the current program matrix. They should therefore be treated as legacy accounts, not as products a new customer can assume are available. The same applies to the old 2 Step Prime plan shown in the previous review.

All five current routes have no maximum completion period. The evaluations test a target before issuing a simulated funded account; the Instant products skip that phase. What separates the products in practice is not only the headline target or drawdown percentage shown in the comparison table, but how the loss limit moves, the consistency calculation and the conditions attached to a reward.

An evaluation becomes active when the first trade is placed after purchase, rather than simply when the order is paid.

How the current programs differ

1 Step Nitro

Nitro has one evaluation target and no minimum trading-day requirement during that evaluation. Its daily limit is recalculated at 5 PM EST, while its overall limit trails the highest recorded balance by a fixed amount equal to 6% of the initial balance. Once the account has generated 6%, that overall floor locks at the original balance instead of continuing to rise.

The evaluation also applies a 50% consistency ceiling: one day's profit cannot exceed half of the target. In the simulated funded phase, the best day must be 45% or less of total profit. Exceeding either percentage is not described as an immediate breach; the trader must keep trading until the ratio falls within the limit.

The standard funded split is 90% on the first $10,000 of simulated profit and 80% afterwards. The terms specify that the first-$10,000 threshold is combined across the trader's Evaluation Funded accounts under one registered email. Giveaway and partnership accounts remain at 80%. Promotions can alter the split for one specific account, but do not follow the customer to future accounts.

2 Step Plus

2 Step Plus requires three trading days in each evaluation phase. Its overall drawdown remains fixed from the initial balance, which makes it operationally simpler than the trailing limits used by Nitro and the Instant plans. Neither evaluation nor funded phase has a consistency rule.

The standard split begins at 70%, but keeping it requires compliance with the Shield Risk Protocol in the funded account. Shield caps floating loss at 1% of the current account balance in real time. A violation closes all positions and progressively reduces the trader's split to 50%, 40%, 30% and, after the fourth violation, a permanent 20%.

FTM also advertises a free 90% split add-on. Selecting it extends Shield into the evaluation: the first Shield violation is a soft breach and the second fails the evaluation. This is a meaningful trade-off, not a cost-free improvement to the payout percentage.

Instant Standard, Pro and Plus

The three Instant products start directly in a simulated funded account and all require five qualifying trading days before a reward. Each day only counts if it produces at least 0.5% profit. They also share a strict 15% consistency rule, calculated as best-day profit divided by total profit; a trader above the ceiling must continue trading before becoming eligible.

Standard and Pro use overall trailing drawdowns that continue following the highest balance. Their split rises by completed reward: 50% on the first, 60% on the second, 70% on the third and 80% from the fourth onward. Partial withdrawals are not allowed on either plan. After a full withdrawal, the overall loss limit resets to its initial position.

Instant Plus instead uses a trailing limit that locks at the initial balance once profit reaches 6%. It begins at an 80% split, provided the trader follows the same 1% Shield floating-loss protocol used by 2 Step Plus. Its violation ladder is also 50%, 40%, 30% and then a permanent 20% split.

How the loss limits actually work

Daily drawdown

The daily drawdown amount is a percentage of the initial account size, but its stop-out level is set from the higher of balance or equity at 5 PM EST. On a $100,000 account with a 3% daily allowance, an end-of-day balance of $104,000 and equity of $103,000 creates a $101,000 floor for the next day. If equity had been $106,000, the floor would instead be $103,000; a lower $101,000 balance would then cause an immediate breach.

That mechanism applies to Nitro, 2 Step Plus and all three Instant plans, using the percentage assigned to each product. The FAQ says the $300,000 Nitro account has a 3% daily limit while the live program matrix displays 4% for Nitro without showing that exception. This is an unresolved conflict in FTM's own material, so a buyer of the largest Nitro account should obtain written confirmation before trading it.

Touching the daily limit with either balance or equity violates and disables the account. Because open profit at the reset can lift the next day's floor, holding a winning position through 5 PM may reduce the room available once that profit retraces.

Overall drawdown and withdrawals

Nitro and Instant Plus trail the highest recorded balance until their respective lock point, then stop at the initial balance. A full withdrawal after the floor has locked can leave no loss room and breach the account. For example, withdrawing an entire 6% profit after a 6% lock returns a $100,000 account to the same $100,000 floor. Leaving part of the profit in the account preserves a buffer.

Nitro adds another condition once simulated profit exceeds $30,000: a partial reward request must cover at least 80% of eligible pre-split profit. Standard and Pro do not lock their trailing drawdown; their documentation instead says only full withdrawals are allowed and the limit then resets. Instant Plus permits partial withdrawals, but the amount left behind directly determines the remaining cushion above its locked floor.

Consistency, allocation and account lifecycle

The consistency calculations use the balance change between consecutive 5 PM EST snapshots as the day's profit. Nitro evaluation compares the best day with its target, while funded Nitro and all Instant accounts compare it with total accumulated profit. 2 Step Plus is the only current route with no consistency test, although Shield can still reduce its funded split.

FTM permits up to $1,000,000 in combined simulated allocation: $600,000 across evaluation routes and $400,000 across Instant accounts. The stated product caps are $300,000 each for Nitro and 2 Step Plus, $200,000 for Instant Standard, and $100,000 each for Instant Pro and Plus. Actively trading above a product's cap can void profit on every active account of that type. The About page still says capital scales to $800,000, so it has not been reconciled with the newer $1 million breakdown used by the homepage and allocation FAQ.

An account can be terminated after 30 consecutive calendar days without activity. FTM may grant an exception for a declared holiday or life event, so a planned absence should be reported in advance. Giveaway accounts have a separate 30-day claim window from announcement. Credentials normally arrive shortly after payment; support asks customers to contact it if they have not arrived within one hour.

Account security remains the trader's responsibility. FTM says it will help change a password after suspected unauthorized access, but will not reinstate an account that was hacked, exposed or shared with another person.

Trading rules that affect real strategies

Allowed styles and important boundaries

News trading, overnight and weekend holding, weekend crypto trading, same-account hedging, martingale, layering and trading bots are allowed in principle. The permission is narrower than that headline suggests. News scalping, high-frequency and tick-scalping bots, latency or reverse arbitrage, emulators, demo-server exploits and multi-account reverse bots are prohibited. FTM also bans external or slow data-feed exploitation, platform-error exploitation, account-management or passing services, account sharing and coordinated group trading.

Trades closed in under one minute have their profit removed in the simulated funded phase. During an evaluation, making more than 20% of the applicable target through such trades requires the challenge to be repeated; on 2 Step Plus, the denominator is the combined target of both phases.

Gap trading is defined more specifically: a position may not be opened within five minutes before rollover and closed within five minutes after it. Profit from that activity is ineligible for a reward. News trading remains allowed, but rapidly opening and closing multiple positions within seconds around events such as FOMC, NFP or CPI is prohibited as news scalping.

Partial closes, hedging and cross-account entries

Partial closes are permitted only if the reduced position is fully closed during the same trading day. An overnight position must retain 100% of its original volume. Positions on the same instrument opened within 15 minutes are aggregated for this rule. Violating it removes the resulting profit; if more than 20% of an evaluation target comes from those trades, the evaluation must be repeated.

Hedging long and short inside one account is allowed. Opposite positions across separate accounts may not overlap. A cross-account hedge can cause upgrade denial during evaluation and reward rejection plus contract termination on simulated funded or Instant accounts. Hedged positions also cannot be held overnight on funded or Instant accounts; FTM says that normally removes the associated profit rather than closing the account.

Martingale and layering are allowed within one account, but coordinated same-symbol entries across accounts are subject to a five-minute framework. Manually opened positions may be entered within five minutes of one another; otherwise the first account's trade must be fully closed before the next account enters. Profit from a prohibited sequence is excluded, with the same 20%-of-target repeat rule during evaluation.

Copying, margin and execution controls

Traders may copy their own trades from another FTM account, broker or evaluation firm, and FTM's internal copier can link accounts from different programs. Trades belonging to another person, third-party signals and a bot shared with another FTM trader are not allowed. TradeLocker accounts are not eligible for the internal copier.

The internal copier supports balance-ratio, starting-balance-ratio, fixed-multiplier and fixed-lot sizing, but each target remains independently responsible for its own limits. A copy below the symbol minimum is rounded up and skipped if margin is insufficient; copier delays or failures remain the trader's responsibility. The special exemption for simultaneous cross-account entries only survives if linked positions remain whole and are closed simultaneously across all accounts.

There is no universal lot cap beyond each instrument's contract specification. At a 110% margin level, new positions are blocked; at 100% or below, all positions are stopped out, though FTM says that event alone does not breach the account.

Rewards, fees and refund conditions

Eligibility and payment methods

Rewards are on demand once the trader has closed every position, met the relevant consistency rule, accumulated the required qualifying days and generated at least 1% of initial balance before the split. Trading may resume after the simulated profit is deducted from the account.

Direct crypto rewards use USDT on TRC20; Rise supports crypto or bank transfer. FTM deducts a 5% processing fee from the trader's share on every crypto reward. The payment identity must match the registered FTM identity, and a crypto wallet already used by another customer can cause forfeiture.

Accounts can be purchased by debit or credit card and through several cryptocurrency networks. FTM places the risk of an incorrect wallet address or network on the customer and says it will not replace a purchase or reward sent using incorrect details.

The guarantee, fee bonus and refunds

The advertised 24-hour guarantee means 24 business hours, counted only from 8 AM to 5 PM ET, Monday to Friday. It applies to requests no larger than $1,000. If FTM misses the window, it promises double the requested amount and a free same-size account. The guarantee is void if FTM requests a payment-method change within the period and the trader does not respond; failure to answer any reward query within 36 hours can auto-reject the request.

The purchase fee is not refunded merely because an evaluation is passed. Instead, eligible evaluation accounts receive a performance bonus equal to the purchase fee with the third reward; Instant accounts and legacy Nitro X are excluded. FTM's refund documents conflict: the dedicated policy offers a 14-day money-back window if no trade has been placed and no term was breached, while the Terms say all sales are final and the FAQ says there is no account-fee refund. This should be clarified in writing before purchase if cancellation rights matter. A chargeback can lead to termination and refusal of future service.

Verification, location and platform access

KYC, identity and IP rules

KYC is required before a simulated funded account can trade, and the Trader Agreement must also be signed; until both are complete the account remains read-only. Accepted identity documents are a passport or national ID, while driving licences are limited to residents or citizens of the US, UK, Australia and Canada. Address evidence includes bank statements, utility or fixed-line bills, tax returns, council tax or government residence certificates; screenshots, mobile bills, medical bills, purchase receipts and insurance statements are rejected. FTM can request more evidence or an interview, and may deny the upgrade if KYC is not completed within two weeks of passing.

Its AML policy adds wallet screening at onboarding, purchase and withdrawal, prohibits privacy coins and anonymous wallets, and allows source-of-funds or source-of-wealth checks for larger or unusual activity. It says due-diligence and transaction records can be retained for five years after the relationship ends.

The purchase IP country must match the country used for KYC. A VPN or VPS cannot be used for purchase, KYC or dashboard access. A VPN is allowed on the trading platform if its exit IP is outside restricted countries, but MT5 and cTrader cannot be traded through a US-origin IP. FTM's general-rule FAQ says only one trader per household/IP, while its newer IP FAQ permits multiple household traders if declared in advance and kept under the combined allocation cap. Because those instructions conflict, household traders should obtain approval from the verification team before placing any trade.

Customers must be at least 18. FTM excludes Cuba, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea, Cyprus, Myanmar, Belarus, Vietnam, Indonesia and Russia, as well as sanctioned users and certain criminal records. An individual may later move an account into a company name by proving their ownership interest. The Terms also let FTM refuse a funded account when it considers the trading too risky and require disputes to be arbitrated in Cyprus under Cypriot law.

Platforms and markets

The available platforms are MT5, cTrader, TradeLocker and MatchTrader. A platform can generally be changed only before any trade, at a phase transition before trading the new phase, or after the balance has returned to its initial level following a reward. Instant Plus and one-step funded accounts must be completely untraded and cannot switch after a reward. FTM lists forex, metals, energies, indices and cryptocurrencies; accounts are swap-free, forex and commodities carry a $7 round-turn commission per lot, and indices and crypto have no commission. Leverage varies by phase, size and asset, and the Terms allow FTM to reduce it to 1:10 if it considers the strategy too risky.

Who Funded Trader Markets fits

FTM offers a genuine choice between a single-stage evaluation, a two-stage route with fixed overall drawdown and immediate simulated funding. It is most suitable for traders who can control end-of-day equity, spread profit across several qualifying days and monitor cross-account activity closely. 2 Step Plus is the cleanest route for someone who dislikes consistency rules, but Shield makes floating loss management central to the eventual split. Nitro suits traders comfortable with a trailing-to-lock mechanism, while Instant Standard and Pro demand especially even returns because of the 15% best-day limit and the stepped split.

The main caution is documentation governance. The current matrix is much narrower than the legacy FAQ library, and live contradictions remain around the largest Nitro daily limit, household access, total scaling and refunds. The rules are detailed enough to evaluate the service, but a buyer should save the exact program terms at checkout and obtain written confirmation wherever the matrix, FAQ and legal pages disagree.