FTMO Review 2026: What Crypto Traders Actually Get

Most traders already know the name, so this FTMO review skips the brand story and focuses on one question: is FTMO a sensible place to trade crypto? The short answer is that it works for forex traders who want some bitcoin exposure, and it disappoints anyone who treats crypto as their main market. Leverage, holding costs and the symbol list all reflect a firm built around currencies.

Who runs FTMO

FTMO is based in Prague. Its imprint lists three Czech companies sharing one Prague address, FTMO s.r.o. among them, along with a Delaware entity called JV Prop Corporation. It does not say which of them you actually contract with when buying a Challenge. The firm states it has operated since 2015 and reports more than $650 million in rewards paid to over 4.5 million customers. Those are unaudited claims, and we hold no third-party payout record. Indian traders should also know that the RBI's Alert List of unauthorised forex platforms names FTMO, at entry 13.

Accounts are simulated, a point FTMO makes itself in its payout FAQ. Crypto comes as spot CFDs against the US dollar, so you track the price without holding coins. See simulated vs real capital for what that means for your money.

How the FTMO Challenge works

There are two evaluation routes and, since October 2026, an instant option.

The 2-Step also comes as a Swing account type, which drops crypto leverage to 1:1 but removes the funded-stage closing duty. The FTMO Instant Account skips evaluation entirely, runs from $5,000 to $100,000 and carries a 90% split with a 30% consistency rule.

The rules that matter most for crypto

The daily limit starts over at 00:00 Prague time. On FTMO's GMT+3 server that is 01:00, while crypto is still trading. A bitcoin swing late in the European evening can therefore count against two different days. Our daily drawdown explainer covers this.

The 1-Step uses an end-of-day trailing floor, while the 2-Step floor stays static. If you scale into winning crypto positions, the 2-Step is the more forgiving choice, as our trailing vs static drawdown comparison explains.

News trading is restricted on funded Standard accounts, with no trades from two minutes before to two minutes after selected releases. The targeted instruments are USD pairs, gold, US indices and the dollar index, and BTCUSD is not among them, so crypto traders are effectively unaffected.

Funded Standard accounts now only need to be flat ahead of breaks lasting over two hours. Crypto's breaks run 10 minutes nightly and 70 minutes over the weekend, so normal weekend holding is allowed.

Weekend holding after the October change

FTMO's crypto CFDs trade on Saturday and Sunday on server time. FTMO updated its weekend FAQ on 11 October 2026 and dropped the older instruction to flatten ahead of the weekend. The remaining duty on funded Standard and Instant accounts is to close before any break longer than two hours, which includes announced maintenance windows. Check FTMO's Trading Updates page before holding into a weekend, and confirm with support if in doubt. Evaluation and Swing accounts can hold through any break. Our weekend holding guide compares how other firms handle this.

Leverage and the crypto list

All 30 crypto CFDs, from BTCUSD and ETHUSD through SOL, XRP, DOGE, AVAX and several smaller names, use the same 30% margin. That means 1:3.33 for Standard and 1:1 for Swing. A full bitcoin at $80,000 ties up $24,000 of margin on Standard and the whole $80,000 on Swing.

Watch the contract sizes too. One lot of BTCUSD is one coin, one lot of ETHUSD is ten ether and one lot of DOGEUSD is 100,000 coins, so the same lot setting means very different exposure across symbols. Use our position size calculator before you size up an altcoin.

Costs and value per $10K

FTMO bills in euros. Our list prices are the regular ones, though when we checked, the $100,000 1-Step was on a 20% promotion at €399.

The 2-Step fee comes back with your first reward, so its true cost is lower for anyone who gets funded. The 1-Step fee is never refunded.

Trading costs are where crypto gets expensive. Each trade pays a 0.065% commission on volume, so a one-coin round trip at $80,000 costs about $104. The overnight swap is 30% a year of position value, long or short, charged nightly. Holding that bitcoin for a month costs roughly $2,000 in swap alone. FTMO suits short-term crypto trades far better than swing positions.

No fee applies to cards, Revolut Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Paying in BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT or USDC adds a 3% fee and can take up to 24 hours to deliver the account.

Payouts

Your first reward can be requested from the 14th day after your first trade, once all positions are closed. FTMO spends one to two business days reviewing and another one to two paying. Requests made before noon Prague time are paid the same day, while anything between Friday noon and Monday noon goes out on Monday.

Crypto rewards come in BTC, ETH, LTC, USDC on ERC20 or USDT on TRC20, from $50 of closed profit. Unlike Skrill (capped at $3,000) and card payouts (capped at $20,000), crypto rewards have no stated maximum. The coin amount depends on the exchange rate at the moment of sending. Bank wire is available from $20. Compare these terms on our crypto payouts list.

US access and other changes

Americans can join only via the separate FTMO US site (ftmo.oanda.com), and that platform lists a single crypto instrument, BTCUSD. Five states are excluded there: South Carolina, Montana, Louisiana, Delaware and Arkansas. A US trader who wants altcoins needs another firm from our US crypto prop firms list.

Beyond the weekend rewrite, October 2026 brought two more changes. On 8 October FTMO announced a consistency rule for 1-Step orders placed from 12 October, capping the best day at 50% of total profit with losing days counted. Older orders keep the previous best-day rule, and neither version counts as a breach. The FTMO Instant Account launched the same week, costing €169 (for $5,000) up to €2,999 (for $100,000). Our change log tracks every update.

Who FTMO suits, and who should avoid it

FTMO suits forex traders who want a well-documented firm, TradingView access and the option to hold some bitcoin or ether alongside currency trades. Its crypto payout options are among the broadest of any multi-asset firm.

Avoid it if crypto is your main market. Low leverage, a modest symbol list and a heavy swap all work against active crypto strategies. Crypto-first firms such as HyroTrader, with hundreds of Bybit pairs, or Velotrade, with 10x bitcoin leverage in the challenge, fit better. Our crypto vs forex prop firms guide sets out the trade-offs.

FTMO review verdict

Our FTMO review gives the firm 63 out of 100. Access and transparency score highly: the rules are clear, the company is named and the firm has a long track record. Payouts are flexible but not fast, and the crypto offer is limited by design. FTMO is a reasonable crypto add-on for forex traders. It is not a crypto prop firm, and specialists will find better value elsewhere.