Why we exist
This industry earned its skeptics. We were built for them.
In 2024, an estimated 80 to 100 prop firms shut down. Regulators in three countries compared the product to a rigged game. Even the biggest fraud case ended with the regulator sanctioned, not the firm.
Nobody in this story was clean. This page shows what happened, with dates and sources, and why we built Ordane against it.
The record
What actually happened, 2012 to 2026.
Every entry below is documented. Links go to primary sources or named trade press.
The builders
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2012 to 2016
The model is born
Topstep starts in Chicago (2012). FTMO follows from a small Prague office (2015), The5ers in 2016. Real risk desks, real payout histories, quiet growth. FTMO, Our Story · Finance Magnates, 2025
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2017 to 2020
The quiet years
The model proves itself at small scale, growing at the speed of its own reserves. This is the version the boom would imitate in form and abandon in substance.
The boom and the break
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2021 to 2023
The boom
Cheap paid traffic meets inflated promises. One firm signs 135,000+ customers and collects $310M in fees in 22 months (CFTC figures).
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Aug 2023
The My Forex Funds complaint
The CFTC charges My Forex Funds with fraud: alleged pretextual terminations and software working against winning traders. Never adjudicated. CFTC Press Release 8771-23, Aug 31, 2023
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Feb 2024
The platform shock
MetaQuotes cuts MetaTrader access for US-facing prop firms overnight, no notice. Six named firms lose their platform within days. Traders' terminals simply stop. Finance Magnates, Feb 2024
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Mar to Jul 2024
The regulators speak
FSMA (Belgium): an unregulated "shadow investment game." CONSOB (Italy): a "finance video game" with contrived difficulty. The Czech National Bank raises MiFID II. FSMA, Mar 7, 2024 · CONSOB, Jul 8, 2024 · CNB via Finance Magnates, Jun 2024
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2024
The shakeout
An estimated 80 to 100 firms close in the year. MetaTrader's prop share halves in nine months. Traders at closed firms lose fees, progress, and pending payouts. Finance Magnates Intelligence, 2024
The reckoning
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May 2025
The case collapses
A federal judge dismisses the case with prejudice and sanctions the CFTC $3M+ for its own conduct. The industry's biggest fraud case ends with no answers. Finance Magnates, May 2025
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Dec 2025 to 2026
The maturation
FTMO buys regulated broker OANDA (Dec 2025). Hola Prime commissions a Deloitte payout review. The era of the anonymous firm with a Discord and a promise is ending. FTMO, Dec 2025 · Finance Magnates, 2026
In their words
Three regulators. Three countries. One diagnosis.
An unregulated "shadow investment game."FSMA, Belgium · March 7, 2024. Firms earn money from consumers who pay for and fail challenges.
Trading challenges built like a "finance video game."CONSOB, Italy · July 8, 2024. Contrived test difficulty; profit splits that go unpaid.
Some models may constitute MiFID II investment services.Czech National Bank · June 2024. The regulator of the industry's largest European home base.
We quote these warnings knowing they describe our industry. Our answer is not marketing. It is structure, below.
The honest economics
Where the math closes, and where it does not.
No prop firm likes explaining its own economics. Here are ours, in plain language.
Account fees fund payouts. Ours included. The FSMA said it as an accusation; we state it as arithmetic: fees in must exceed payouts out, or the firm dies with every pending payout. 2024 proved it 80 to 100 times.
Rules are the solvency mechanism. The scandal was never that rules exist. It was rules hidden, elastic, applied at withdrawal time. Ours are numbered, public before purchase, and frozen at the version you buy.
Payout totals are easy to inflate. Trade press documented firms mixing salaries and affiliate costs into payout wallets. So we do not lead with a banner total: we lead with a reserve address you can inspect and a dated payout ledger.
What we will not tell you: that most buyers profit. We have no data yet and will not borrow the industry's. Until we publish an honest number with its date: the rules are strict, and most traders in this industry never reach payouts.
The documented fears
Everything traders learned to fear, answered in clauses.
The left column is documented history. The right column is the specific, numbered mechanism we built against it. Every reference links to Rulebook v1.0.
| The fear (documented) | The Ordane answer |
|---|---|
| Payout denied after passing. CONSOB cited complaints of promised splits going unpaid (Jul 2024). | Every withdrawal request is answered in writing within 24 hours, citing the exact rule by section, or it counts as approved. G-0 |
| Hidden or elastic rules applied at withdrawal time. Alleged in the CFTC's 2023 complaint as pretextual terminations. | The prohibited list is closed. If a behavior is not listed, it is not a violation. Discretion is not a rule. R-6 |
| Consistency rules used to confiscate profit. | Our consistency rule never confiscates and never closes an account. Excess profit defers to the next cycle. R-4 |
| Rules changed retroactively on open accounts. | The rulebook is versioned with a dated changelog. No change ever applies retroactively. The version you buy under governs your account for its life. §0 |
| Slow or frozen withdrawals. | Approved and unpaid after 48 clock hours: your full account fee is refunded and the payout is still owed. Late costs us, not you. G-1 |
| The firm disappears with everyone's fees. An estimated 80 to 100 did in 2024. | The payout reserve is held at a published address you can inspect at any time, before you pay us anything. PR-1 |
| Inflated payout totals from commingled wallets, documented by trade press. | A dedicated reserve, a dated payout ledger from payout one, and no headline totals we cannot prove. PR-2 |
| KYC limbo used to stall payouts. | KYC happens once, at first withdrawal, and documented review is capped at 10 business days. Past that, the guarantee applies regardless. G-2 |
What good looks like
How to audit any prop firm. Including us.
The maturing end of this industry has converged on a checklist. Use it on everyone:
1. Is the full rulebook public before checkout? If a rule can meet you after purchase, it is not a rule, it is a trap.
2. Is there a version policy? Ask, in writing, whether rules can change on your open account.
3. Is the payout claim verifiable? A total on a banner is marketing. A dated ledger, a public reserve, or a third-party review is evidence. Only one firm in the industry has commissioned a Big Four payout review to date. That bar should be normal.
4. Does lateness cost the firm anything? A guarantee without a penalty is a slogan.
5. Is the simulated nature of the account declared? On the first page, not in clause 41.
Run it on us and you will find one honest gap: we are new. Everything else is already on the page. The history we can only earn: payout by payout, in public.
Who answers for this page
A firm with no face is a firm with no address.
square, neutral background]
[FILL IN: founder name], founder. Six years inside this industry before Ordane: consulting for trading firms and selling in the markets this page describes, from LATAM to MENA.
Every claim on this page has a source. Every rule has a number. If either ever fails you, the guarantee in Rulebook §4 says what it costs us.
Signed: [FILL IN: founder name] · Rulebook v1.0 · July 2026
The standard
Serious traders. Numbered rules. Contractual payouts.
Ordane was not built to promise you profits. It was built so that one question never needs asking again: "will they actually pay?"
Trade within the rules and payment is not a favor: it is a contract with a clock, a penalty we pay for lateness, and a reserve you can see. The standard holds, or it costs us.