Research

Are Prop Firms Going Away? Where the Industry Is Heading

Are prop firms going away? Closures, consolidation, brokers buying in and the futures boom: what 2024–26 tells a founder about the next few years.

By PipValley Editorial
Published 12 Oct 2026
4 min read

The question usually follows a bad headline: a platform withdrawal, a closure, a court case. Taken together, the 2024–26 events point to a maturing industry rather than a disappearing one.

What says the industry is shrinking?

Closures: 80 to 100 firms in 2024, per Finance Magnates.
Platform exits: MetaQuotes in February 2024, ProjectX's third-party service after February 28, 2026, cTrader's US prop onboarding from July 1, 2026.
Trust: Trustpilot suspensions over fake reviews and unverifiable payout totals.
Margins: FTMO's 2025 net income fell 59% on record revenue, per TradeInformer.

What says it is growing?

Payouts: Prop Firm Match tracked about $325 million in 2025, per Finance Magnates, a floor because not every firm connects.
Crypto: tracked crypto payouts at the top 10 firms rose from $55.3 million in Q1 2025 to $115.1 million in Q1 2026, per Finance Magnates Data Lab.
Revenue at the top: FTMO reported record revenue of about $422.9 million in 2025.
Strategic buyers: FTMO bought OANDA (December 2025), Kraken bought Breakout (September 2025), Topstep bought The Futures Desk (April 2026).

What does that mean for a new firm?

The easy era of launching a copy of a big firm and buying traffic is over. The firms that start now and last tend to have a niche (a market, a language, a trading style or a community), a second platform route, a payout plan sized for bad months, and a website that makes them checkable. Trust is the scarce resource, and that is something a small firm can compete on.

Watch two trends in particular. First, brokerisation: as large firms add regulated brokers, the gap between a prop firm and a broker narrows, and so do the marketing claims a small firm can safely make next to them. Second, market mix: futures and crypto are taking share from CFDs, which changes which platforms, payment rails and rules traders expect from a new firm.

Questions

Will prop firms be banned?

There is no sign of a general ban as of October 2026. Regulators are watching, and some markets restrict certain firms, such as India's RBI Alert List. Our page on whether prop firms will be regulated covers the signals.

Is prop trading dead?

No. Tracked payouts were about $325 million in 2025 and crypto payouts doubled year on year in Q1 2026, per Finance Magnates. It is consolidating, not ending.

Is it too late to start a prop firm?

Not if you have an audience and a niche. It is too late to win on price alone against firms with years of payout history.

Who is buying prop firms?

Brokers, exchanges and larger prop firms. FTMO bought OANDA, Kraken bought the crypto prop firm Breakout, and Topstep bought the education firm The Futures Desk, all between September 2025 and April 2026.

Sources

Illustrative figures, not a forecast. Nothing on this site is legal, tax or financial advice. PipValley is a web design studio; we don’t sell challenges, run trading accounts or provide trading platforms. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it with the date.

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