The Funded Trader review 2026: Knight, Royal, and Dragon challenges with up to 95% profit split, post-April-2024 relaunch, BBB rating F
The Funded Trader is a Liberty Hill, Texas-based proprietary trading firm founded in 2021. Traders pass 1-Step, 2-Step, or 3-Step evaluations (Knight, Royal, Dragon) with 5% daily and 10% overall balance-based drawdown, then receive a funded demo account with no disclosed sponsor broker. Pays out up to 95% of profits on a biweekly schedule, with over $2M in denied payouts admitted after the April 2024 shutdown.
What is The Funded Trader?
The Funded Trader is a US-based proprietary trading firm founded in 2021 and headquartered in Liberty Hill, Texas. The firm sells multi-track evaluation challenges (paid tests granting access to a funded simulated account) under three model names: Knight (1-Step), Royal (2-Step), and Dragon (3-Step).
Account sizes on the current rules page run from $5K up to $200K, with scaling paths advertised to $2.5M on the Knight Pro VIP tier. CEO Angelo Ciaramello is the publicly named founder. The challenge program halted entirely in April 2024 and relaunched several weeks later with a partial product reset, a sequence detailed in the section below.
What happened to the firm in April 2024?
On April 4, 2024, the firm paused all payouts, citing what it called a self-imposed internal audit tied to its forced migration off MetaTrader. The trigger was the MetaQuotes February 2024 purge, in which MetaQuotes revoked MT4 and MT5 server licenses for several major prop firms over alleged copy-trading and rule-switching abuse (source: MetaQuotes sanction notices, February 2024).
The firm's website displayed a countdown timer pointing to a 21-day relaunch. CEO Angelo Ciaramello publicly addressed traders on X, promising compensation for affected accounts. Coverage from industry trade press (FinanceFeeds, 2024) reported that the firm later admitted to over 2 million USD in denied payouts from the suspension window.
Trading platforms offered after the 2024 platform purge
The current site lists four platform options: Match-Trader, DXtrade, cTrader, and MT5. MT4 (MetaTrader 4) was lost in the February 2024 MetaQuotes action and has not been restored on the rules page. Where MT5 is available now, it runs through the sponsor broker's server, not a directly-licensed MetaQuotes server. The firm's own MetaQuotes license status remains revoked as of the scan date.
Each platform on the funded stage drives a mirrored demo account; no live retail execution sits on the trader's side. Match-Trader and DXtrade carry their own broker-side terms.
Red flags and warning signs
Several discrete findings warrant attention before any challenge purchase. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile assigns the firm an F rating, with 14 of 15 complaints unanswered as of the scan date (source: BBB business profile, Liberty Hill, TX). The sponsor broker, the licensed entity routing funded-account orders, is not named on the rules or payout pages.
The April 2024 payout pause produced documented denied withdrawals exceeding 2 million USD by the firm's own subsequent admission. Independent industry reporting through 2025 describes a recurring pattern of payout delays, with public negative posts reportedly removed or blocked from the firm's Discord channel.
Challenge pricing on the current rules page
Entry pricing on the current site starts at 42 USD for the smallest Knight or Royal account and rises through the size ladder. A $100K Royal challenge is listed at roughly 489 USD on the rules page. Promotional discounts cycle on the site, so the same plan can show 25 percent to 40 percent off during campaign periods. Refund terms on the challenge fee are not disclosed on the public rules page.
Has the firm been investigated by regulators?
Public US federal regulators have not filed a published civil action against the brand as of the scan date. The firm is not registered with the CFTC (US Commodity Futures Trading Commission) or the NFA (US National Futures Association); prop firms structurally cannot hold those registrations, since funded accounts are simulated and not customer brokerage accounts.
The CFTC RED List, the FCA (UK Financial Conduct Authority) Warning List, the ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) banned list, and IOSCO investor alerts return zero entries for the brand on the scan date. The standing public-record finding is the BBB F-grade business profile with the unanswered-complaint pattern noted above.
What do traders report about payouts?
The user-aggregate rating sits above 4.5/5 across thousands of historical reviews, but the distribution has shifted, with a meaningful one-star concentration tied to payout complaints over the past 12 months. Independent industry coverage (FinanceFeeds, 2024-2025) documents recurring Reddit r/PropTrading threads and Discord posts describing delayed or unfulfilled payouts after passing the funded stage.
The pattern is not isolated. The firm's April 2024 admission of more than 2 million USD in denied payouts establishes a documented refusal event; community signal through 2025 indicates the underlying tension did not fully reset after the relaunch.
Withdrawal and payout problems on the record
Three distinct documented withdrawal problems sit on the public record. First, the April 2024 firm-wide payout suspension. Second, the firm's own published acknowledgement of more than 2 million USD in denied payouts during that window (source: CEO statement on X, April 2024). Third, public reports across 2025 that traders complaining publicly about payout delays were blocked from the firm's Discord channel (source: independent industry reporting, mid-2025).
None of these findings are presented as judgment; each maps to a specific dated event with primary or industry-press attribution.
How to verify The Funded Trader's claims for yourself
Five verification steps cover most of the searchable surface:
- Search the CFTC RED List and the FCA Warning List for the brand name and any related legal entity name (zero entries on the scan date).
- Pull the BBB business profile under Liberty Hill, TX and read the unanswered complaints in full.
- Search the firm's site for any sentence naming a sponsor broker with regulator and license number; absence of that sentence is itself the finding.
- Check the rules page for a dated changelog of rule updates; absence of a changelog is a transparency signal.
- Filter Reddit r/PropTrading for the brand name in the past 12 months and read the payout-related threads end to end.
Rule changes and what they mean for you
Public reporting on the post-relaunch period notes adjustments to consistency rules, drawdown calculation, and EA (Expert Advisor, automated trading script) permissions across plan tiers, without a single dated changelog on the rules page. Where consistency and drawdown adjustments are introduced after a trader has purchased a plan, the change applies prospectively on the firm's reading, a pattern reflected in 2024-2025 trader complaints.
The sector reference for retroactive rule edits is the FundingTicks 2026 retroactive consistency-rule case. The Funded Trader has not been linked to a single-event scandal of that scale; the absence of a published changelog makes independent verification thinner regardless.
Where is the firm actually registered?
The published business address sits at 14001 W HWY 29, Suite 102, Liberty Hill, TX 78642 (source: BBB business profile). The firm operates under the brand name without a clearly disclosed parent corporate entity on the public site. Texas is a Tier-1 jurisdiction for residency, but state-of-incorporation versus operating-address divergence cannot be confirmed against any public filing on the scan date.
Sponsor broker disclosure (or lack of one)
The single most important data point in any prop firm review is the sponsor broker, the licensed entity executing orders on the funded simulated account. The Funded Trader does not name its sponsor broker on the rules page, the FAQ, or the trader portal as of the scan date. Verification status: sponsor undisclosed.
An undisclosed sponsor means no auditable execution venue, no regulator route for a payout complaint against the execution entity, and no way to confirm the funded-account quote stream against a Tier-1 broker feed.
| Feature | The Funded Trader Information |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2021 |
| Headquarters | Liberty Hill, Texas, United States |
| Evaluation type | 1-Step / 2-Step / 3-Step (Knight / Royal / Dragon) |
| Account sizes | $5K, $10K, $25K, $50K, $100K, $200K |
| Challenge fee | From 42 USD; $100K Royal ~489 USD |
| Profit target | 8% / 5% (Royal 2-Step); 10% (Knight 1-Step) |
| Max daily drawdown | 5% on balance |
| Max overall drawdown | 10%, trailing-to-balance |
| Profit split | Base 80%; up to 95% on Knight Pro VIP |
| Payout schedule | Biweekly, 7-day first-payout option on Knight |
| Sponsor broker | Not disclosed on official site |
| Sponsor verification | Undisclosed (could not verify) |
| Trading platforms | Match-Trader, DXtrade, cTrader, MT5 |
| Total paid out | Not disclosed; firm admitted 2M+ USD denied payouts April 2024 |
| Refund policy | Not disclosed on rules page |
Should you avoid The Funded Trader?
Three findings sit at the center of the verdict. The sponsor broker remains undisclosed, which makes the execution layer of the funded account unauditable. The firm's own April 2024 admission of more than 2 million USD in denied payouts is the kind of documented refusal that the rubric used here treats as a payout-reliability disqualifier. BBB rating F with the unanswered-complaint pattern is unusual for a five-year-old US-based operation marketed to retail traders.
A trader who values sponsor broker transparency and a clean post-2024 payout track record will find the verification surface thin. A trader attracted by the 95 percent profit split on the Knight Pro VIP tier should weigh that against the absence of a published payout proof page or sponsor broker disclosure on the rules page.
Prop firm challenges carry a non-refundable fee in most programs; passing the evaluation is not guaranteed and the funded stage is a simulated account whose payouts depend on the firm's continued solvency and policy. This content is for information only, not investment advice. Verify the firm's current rules, sponsor broker disclosure, and any open regulator actions on its official site and on the relevant authority's official register before paying any challenge fee.
FXSharp is an independent site that reviews forex brokers and prop trading firms. Every license is checked on the regulator's own register, every score follows our published methodology, and no broker can pay for a higher rating.
