Crypto payouts tracked on public blockchains across the ten largest proprietary trading firms rose from $55.3 million in Q1 2025 to $115.1 million in Q1 2026, according to a new FM Intelligence analysis.
The 109% year-over-year jump masks a sharper story, the figure barely moved against the $115.2 million recorded in Q4 2025, a 0.1% sequential change that points to an inflection after two years of rapid expansion.
Within the cohort, the distribution of growth was uneven. FundedNext CFDs climbed 293% year-over-year to $42.7 million, while MyFunded Futures rose 161% to $38.5 million. Together the two firms represented 70.5% of Q1 2026 tracked payouts across the top 10. Six other operators moved the other way, with TopTier Trader down 78%, FXIFY down 59%, and Blue Guardian and E8 Markets both posting double-digit declines.
The broader 2025 payout league table compiled by Prop Firm Match put the full-year figure at roughly $325 million, excluding FTMO and The5ers.
Transaction counts continued to climb even as aggregate dollar flows flattened. The cohort processed 61,682 payout events in Q1 2026, up 8.1% from Q4 2025 and 129% year-over-year. Average payout size fell to $1,865 from $2,020, suggesting more traders are hitting first-payout thresholds but at smaller ticket sizes.
Five Firms Added Brokerage Licenses in 10 Months
The plateau at the top has coincided with a structural pivot across the surviving cohort. Between May 2025 and March 2026, five prop firms or their founders added regulated brokerage entities to their corporate structures. FTMO closed its $250 million acquisition of OANDA on December 1, 2025, financed through a UniCredit-led credit line. FundedNext launched FNmarkets in May 2025 under a Comoros licence, with Mauritius and Dubai applications pending.
The5ers founders took a minority stake in CySEC CySEC The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision Read this Term-licensed TSG Brokers, which went live in January 2026. The Trading Pit registered TTP Markets with the Seychelles FSA, and Seacrest, formerly MyFundedFX, shut down its prop operations in early February 2026 to operate exclusively as an FSCA-regulated CFD broker. FM Intelligence estimates approximately 80 to 100 prop firms ceased operations between January 2024 and Q1 2026.
The Math That Still Defines the Industry
FPFX Technology data covering 300,000 accounts across 10 firms shows a 14% challenge pass rate and a 7% payout rate, with average payouts equal to roughly 4% of funded account size. The July 2025 insolvency of Funded Unicorn, which described losses in the high seven figures from mirroring all funded positions one-for-one in the market, illustrated the risk that brokerage infrastructure is now being built to address.
No jurisdiction has enacted bespoke prop firm regulation Regulation Like any other industry with a high net worth, the financial services industry is tightly regulated to help curb illicit behavior and manipulation. Each asset class has its own set of protocols put in place to combat their respective forms of abuse.In the foreign exchange space, regulation is assumed by authorities in multiple jurisdictions, though ultimately lacking a binding international order. Who are the Industry’s Leading Regulators?Regulators such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority ( Like any other industry with a high net worth, the financial services industry is tightly regulated to help curb illicit behavior and manipulation. Each asset class has its own set of protocols put in place to combat their respective forms of abuse.In the foreign exchange space, regulation is assumed by authorities in multiple jurisdictions, though ultimately lacking a binding international order. Who are the Industry’s Leading Regulators?Regulators such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority ( Read this Term as of April 2026. The Czech National Bank, CySEC, and ASIC have signaled scrutiny without concrete rules.
The CFTC’s case against MyForexFunds was dismissed with prejudice in May 2025 after a special master found the regulator had taken “deliberate steps down a path of obfuscation and avoidance.”
Yesterday (Tuesday), prop firm E8 Markets released a PR statement warning retail traders about the CFD market, noting that most participants lose money there. At the same time, it describes itself as a “SaaS educational simulation platform for financial markets” to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
