Short answer: winning gets you an evaluation account, not funded capital. You pass phase 1, then phase 2, and only then do payouts become real. And if you fail — at TradeWars specifically — you owe nothing and can enter again on Monday.
What do you actually receive when you win?
This is the first place expectations break, and it is worth being blunt. At most trading competitions the prize is the organiser's own challenge — you win a voucher for the product they sell. At TradeWars the prize is a €5,000 Crypto Fund Trader evaluation account, bought from a third party for you. Either way, one thing is true everywhere: you are not funded on the day you win.
What arrives is a set of MT5 credentials — a login, a server and a password — for an account that behaves exactly like the demo you competed on. What has changed is what is at stake: clear its two phases and your results start earning real money.
What does the timeline look like, realistically?
- Sunday 23:59 UTC — the contest closes and the top 3 are decided automatically.
- Within minutes — winners receive a claim email.
- You submit identity documents — passport or ID, date of birth, address. The prize is personal and non-transferable, so this step cannot be skipped.
- Once approved — TradeWars buys the account and forwards the credentials.
- Phase 1: 8% profit target, minimum 5 trading days, no time limit.
- Phase 2: 5% profit target on a fresh account, again 5 trading days minimum and no deadline.
- Funded — first payout after 15 trading days, then every 30 calendar days.
The honest headline in that list is no time limit. Nothing expires, so there is never a reason to force a trade. The traders who lose these accounts almost always lose them to haste, not to the market.
Is the funded account real money, or still a demo?
It is simulated — at every stage, including after you pass. Crypto Fund Trader says so in their own terms: all trading takes place in a simulated environment, and rewards are based on simulated performance, explicitly "not actual market profits, investment returns, or real financial exposure".
What becomes real is the payout. You are paid actual money, by bank transfer or crypto, for your results on simulated capital. This is how the whole prop-firm industry works, and it is the single most common surprise for a first-time winner. Anyone who tells you that you will be "trading the firm's capital" is using marketing language, not the provider's terms.
Can you withdraw profit during phase 1 or phase 2?
No — and not because of a threshold. An evaluation account cannot pay out at all. The money in it is your score in a test, not capital you own. Profit made during a phase is progress toward its target and nothing more.
One of our winners emailed in August 2026 asking to withdraw $115 of profit from a phase 1 account. It was a perfectly reasonable question, and the answer was that there was nothing to withdraw however well it was going. Payouts begin at the funded stage and not before.
Why does the balance go to zero when you pass a phase?
Because that is what passing looks like from inside MT5. When you hit the phase 1 target, the provider closes that account and issues a new one for phase 2, starting again at the original balance. The finished account is zeroed with a balance operation — often labelled a "custom deposit" — which in the trade history looks exactly like somebody withdrawing everything you made.
A winner hit this on 14 August 2026, found −5,421.61 in his history and wrote to us convinced the account had been emptied. He had in fact just cleared phase 1 at +8.43%. If you see this, check your email for a new set of credentials before assuming the worst.
What happens if you fail?
Here the answer depends entirely on who sold you the attempt — and it is the reason this page exists.
If you bought the challenge yourself, failing a phase usually means paying a reset fee to try again, commonly around 30-60% of the original price, or buying a fresh challenge. The attempt was a purchase, so a second attempt is a second purchase.
If you won it at TradeWars, you owe nothing. There is no reset fee because there was no fee. The evaluation was bought for you by the platform, so failing it costs the platform and not you — and a new contest opens every Monday, so you can be competing for another one within days.
We can write that sentence because we do not sell challenges. A prop firm cannot: its reader has already paid, and the only answer it has to "what if I fail" is another invoice. That difference is the whole model, not a marketing line.
How much of the payout do you keep?
Two splits apply in sequence, and "you keep 75%" on its own is not precise enough. On €1,000 of profit made on a funded account:
- Crypto Fund Trader keeps 20% under their 80/20 live-stage split → they pay you €800
- You remit 25% of that payout to TradeWars → €200
- You keep €600 — 60% of the profit, not 75%
Our 25% is always calculated on the payout you actually received, never on profit before the provider's cut, so you are never charged on money that never reached you. The provider's split is set by them and can change; ours cannot without your agreement.
Who holds the account, and what should you do first?
The evaluation account is registered in your own name, from the identity you submitted with your claim. You receive the trading credentials; TradeWars keeps the email address used at registration with the provider, which is how it handles the admin and accompanies you through the payout process.
Change the master password the moment you log in. It reached you by email, so treat it as temporary. Then set an investor (read-only) password and connect the account to TradeWars — that credential can read your equity but can never place, close or modify a trade, nor withdraw anything. It is how the profit share is administered without anyone touching your account.
What this means before you enter
None of the above should put you off, but all of it should be known in advance. You are competing for a free attempt at a paid evaluation, not for a cheque. The challenge is not removed — its cost is. Most traders across the industry do not pass one, and we would rather you knew that before your first week than after your first win.
Related: the full FAQ · contest rules · free trading competitions compared