Introduction
Over the past few years, the online prop firm industry has grown rapidly, and recently the industry has begun to mature. Enough time has passed, and enough traders have purchased funding evaluations and achieved payouts, for us to know that there are some seriously reliable firms out there.
Now that the industry has matured, we’ve started to see a number of well-established brokers entering the online prop firm space with their own offerings.
In this article, we’re going to examine how the broker-backed newcomers stack up against the established giants of the online prop firm industry.
The Established Giants
At onlinepropfirm.com, we believe that the top three online prop firms are FTMO, The5ers, and FundedNext. These three firms are the established giants of the industry because they have proven beyond doubt that they provide traders with excellent and fair trading conditions and that they pay their traders as long as they follow the clearly defined rules.
If you’d like to learn more about our top three online prop firms and see how they compare, please check out our comparison article here.
The Broker-Backed Newcomers
With the online prop firm industry booming and still offering huge potential for further growth, brokers such as Oanda, Purple Trading, Blueberry Markets, and IC Markets have entered the industry with their own online prop firms.
They all look promising! Their websites are professional and well-written, as you would expect, and they all offer competitive funding programs with attractive pricing.
But do these broker-backed firms bring anything new to the industry?
When we examine the funding models, pricing, trading platforms, and rules that these broker-backed firms offer, we find that they’re not significantly different from those already provided by the established firms in the industry.
The arrival of these companies in the online prop firm space is a positive sign that the industry is maturing. They will likely attract many new traders to the industry—traders who might have otherwise been hesitant to trade with an online prop firm or who may not have even known that prop firms existed until their preferred broker launched one. This development is great for the industry as a whole, but the firms themselves aren’t offering anything particularly new or innovative compared to what is already available from the established players.
Conclusion
Broker-backed firms are a fantastic addition to the online prop firm industry. Their entry is a strong indicator that the industry is maturing, is here for the long term, and still has significant potential for growth.
Should you trade with a broker-backed prop firm?
I don’t think any of these firms are entering the industry with anything other than good intentions. However, we don’t yet know if they will stick around for the long term. The already established firms have proven their reliability and trustworthiness over time. They offer exceptional trading conditions and provide their traders with slick dashboards, excellent customer support, and valuable educational resources.
In time, perhaps one or more of these broker-backed firms will establish themselves as industry leaders. If they do, I will happily recommend them. For now, however, I still recommend sticking with the established firms.
