A Timeline of the "February Diaspora" of Prop Firms

February is the shortest month of the year, but this particular one surely has been the longest for the proprietary trading community. With MetaQuotes taking a hardline approach in February to sever white-label prop firms from using its MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms, there has been an explosion of US-based companies announcing suspensions of business. Below is a timeline compiled by Fazzaco based on our news library since February 7:

February 7, Harbingers of Disaster - Prop firm True Forex Funds this day announced the suspension of its services​ due to MetaQuotes terminating their license. True Forex Funds has since migrated to the cTrader platform and ceased providing services to US clients.

February 14, Disaster Strikes - Leading prop trading firm Funding Pips, based in Dubai, UAE, announced the suspension of all trading operations and client services on this day​. The firm cited "unexpected urgent maintenance" as the reason. Currently, the company is in the process of platform migration and has ceased services to US clients. The Funding Pips Incident is widely regarded within the community as the beginning of the "February Disaster."

​February 15, Crisis Escalates Rapidly - Fazzaco was one of the first covering the story of Eightcap announcing the suspension of services to their prop trading partners, which resulted in several firms including TopTier Trader, Smart Prop Trader, Blue Guardian, and Funded Trading Plus announcing interruptions in client services​. Eightcap declared it would officially cease providing services to proprietary trading companies by February 29. This event generated significant ripple effects, leading many affected firms to fully transition to cTrader and DXTrade.

Fazzaco's latest update as of February 28 reveals that TopTier Trader is considering abandoning MT4 and MT5 altogether, opting instead for a relatively lesser-known platform, TradeLocker​.

February 16, More Impacted - FTMO and The5ers became the latest prop firms to suffer service setbacks on the 16th​. On the 20th, Alex Kriss, Head of Trading Success at The5ers, in an interview with Gary Langley from The Scruffy Trader channel (Gary had previously an interview with Fazzaco regarding the proprietary trading industry​ in last December), pointed out that the reason behind this was the reluctance of US regulatory agencies to allow these companies to provide CFD trading to US citizens. Therefore, instead of dealing directly with them one by one, they pressured MetaQuotes to sever the links of prop firms.

February 18-19, Surge in Prop Firms Ceasing US Operations - Prop firms Alpha Capital Group and MyFundedFX​ began restricting services to their respective US clients from the 18th. On the 19th, Crypto Fund Trader (CFT)​ also terminated MetaTrader 5 services to US clients.

February 21, ThinkMarkets Joins the "Cut-off" - Prop firm Instant Funding announced on social media that its partner broker, ThinkMarkets, would cease providing services to prop firms' US clients starting from February 23​.

February 22, The Great "Diaspora" of Desperate Prop Firms Begins - In the wake of broker partner ThinkMarkets' decision to discontinue services, prop firm Lark Funding stated that its existing trading platform would no longer serve US clients and planned to migrate its existing trader base to DXtrade​.

In fact, according to Fazzaco's understanding, as early as the 16th, another prop firm, Smart Prop Trader, announced through its account on X that it was preparing to migrate to several new broker platforms, including cTrader​. Furthermore, on the 20th, in an article published by Fazzaco titled "A Whirlwind Week for Prop Firms​," quoting data from B2B industry analyst Anya Aratovskaya, it was noted that at the time, most firms remained in a wait-and-see attitude and had not made preparations for migration.

This indicates the rapid escalation of events in this incident.

February 22 - Now (the time of writing), Migration Grows Stronger - On the 22nd, Hungarian prop firm True Forex Funds announced its migration to cTrader​; on the 23rd, following companies like The Funded Trader and Swift Funding, For Traders also announced the imminent completion of its integration with the trading platform DXTrade​.

MetaQuotes Simply Kicked Prop Firms Off the MT Ship

Like a large ship in the age of exploration, the prop firms, who were comfortably aboard this ship known as MetaTrader, were almost without much warning, kicked off the ship by Captain MetaQuotes. What "crime" did they commit, mutiny? The reason lies in the operational model of the proprietary trading industry over the years, which mostly provided demo trading environment, often causing trouble for traders when withdrawing funds.

"MQ has grown big enough to make the industry dependent on their services, allowing them to dictate the rules of the CFD business. They've evolved into a business-critical front-office part of the business, like a franchisor deciding if you are accepted as a franchisee, controlling client-facing aspects and dictating operational strategies. The uncertainty is the worst, as the MT licenses can be revoked at a very short notice like a rug pulled out from under one's feet. Imagine if Zendesk or Slack restricted you to the degree that MQ does," Evgeny Sorokin, CPO of Devexperts, who had previously been interviewed by Fazzaco's Artificial Intelligence Forum​, said in a recent post regarding this matter.