Quick funded account update:
FX account: +$376
Crypto account: +$614
Both are performing well so far.
On the flip side, my Equities evaluation is currently -0.7% and taking a hit on SPY and QQQ shorts. This market is in full “up only” mode right now.
I’m planning to open a few more prop firm accounts to run in tandem with @VantaTrading. My goal is to give real-time comparisons and share what I learn across different platforms.
Which prop firm should I try next? Drop your recommendations below and inlcude your referral links!
What is a prop firm and why should you actually care?
Most traders hit a wall not because of skill, but because of capital.
A prop firm gives you access to real money to trade with, but only after you prove you can handle it.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share my real-time journey with prop firms, the wins, the mistakes, and everything I’m learning along the way.
I started entering challenges back in March on @VantaTrading.
Failed some, passed my first one, received multiple real payouts… then blew the account up on two bad trades after a 46-trade win streak.
That’s all it took. Too much size. Terrible risk management. Big market move while I was asleep. Classic mistake.
Fast forward to yesterday. I passed both the Crypto and FX challenges (each took 3–5 weeks of grinding).
Two funded accounts in one day.
This is exactly why I’m documenting the full journey. Not just the wins, the real story, including the screw-ups.
The capital access with Vanta is legit (I’ve already been paid). Now the real work is learning to protect it. That’s the key to scaling to even larger account sizes.
Double win day on @VantaTrading 🔥
Passed the Crypto challenge earlier today… and just now passed the FX evaluation too!
Two funded accounts in one day. Screenshots attached.
This is the exact moment I’ve been waiting for. Real capital access after years of trading/losing my own money. Now the real journey begins.
I’m going to document every step publicly: the scaling process, the psychology, the wins, and the mistakes.
One month in… and I just passed the crypto prop firm challenge with @VantaTrading.
I've been trading for 20+ years and either never heard of prop firms, or assumed they were too good to be true. I'm guessing a lot of you are in the same spot. It started to click when @0xarrash and Taoshi launched subnet 8, and fully made sense once Taoshi launched the front-facing products, @VantaTrading and @HyperscaledHQ. Now I wonder why everyone isn't trading with prop firms.
The biggest obstacle for disciplined traders has always been access to real capital. Prop firms change that.
I'm going to document the full journey for anyone curious about prop trading. If you've ever felt limited by your own account size, follow along.
@tradertheory@VantaTrading has been awesome! Passed the FX challenge in March and already received 3 payouts since. This week won’t be one (because I sucked). They're still a new platform ironing out a few kinks. Overall, it’s been an incredible experience so far.
This take sounds pretty confident, but it’s collapsing early network bootstrapping into “ponzi” without actually looking at where real demand is already showing up.
The claim that there is no PMF or utility just doesn’t hold up anymore. There are many examples from a variety of subnets tackling different markets, but I'll focus on SN8 as a clear example of product-market fit.
Traders are paying to participate, competing for capital, and getting paid out based on performance. This isn’t theoretical usage or “AI theatre,” it’s a direct replacement for centralized prop firms with transparent rules, onchain payouts, and no hidden constraints. The first of its kind built on bittensor. As we’re gathering valuable signal from traders, we’re maintaining profitability, and those margins only increase through live trading via our hedge fund and SaaS platform we’ve already built that is CFTC & SEC compliant, where revenue flows back to the subnet on top of trader demand.
What’s actually happening here is bigger than just prop trading. SN8 has built in agentic trading infrastructure. With our SDK, anyone can build or deploy trading agents directly into the network, plug into capital, and compete based on performance. That alone changes the structure of the industry, but the second-order effect is even more important.
We’re watching the commoditization of trading infrastructure and strategies in real time. Execution, data, and even alpha generation are becoming modular and composable. As that happens, strategies get more performant and more complex, while the barrier to entry drops. Individual quants are no longer constrained by capital access or institutional infrastructure. They can spin up what are effectively mini quant firms, powered by agents, competing on equal footing in the network. That’s not something legacy prop firms or even hedge funds can replicate.
The market this goes after is massive. Prop trading plus adjacent hedge fund capital is easily a $100B+ opportunity, and it’s still dominated by opaque, centralized players with hidden rules and payout friction. SN8 is positioned to disrupt that by making capital access permissionless, performance verifiable, and payouts transparent. The key ingredients of running a bittensor subnet ARE the differentiators here. This only works because of Bittensor’s incentive layer coordinating capital, performance, and rewards in a decentralized way. You can’t replicate that without reintroducing trust and gatekeeping.
The inflation argument also misses how networks actually get built. Early-stage networks always subsidize supply before demand catches up. Bitcoin had zero revenue and 100% issuance at one point. The real question isn’t whether emissions exceed revenue today, it’s whether there are credible paths where real demand replaces those subsidies over time. SN8 is already showing that path, where users pay to access capital, the network collects alpha through participation and fees, and that value starts to cycle back into the system.
The point about no value flowing back to token holders is also outdated. Burn is already trackable onchain, including on subnets like Chutes, and tokens are increasingly being locked as collateral and tied directly to usage. This isn’t equity-style cash flow, but it is real value accrual through supply reduction and demand for utility.
For example, all of this is fully trackable with SN8. Growth KPIs, burn events, revenue, and net flows are transparently visible on our dashboard: https://t.co/sIXDkstDN0
More broadly, this critique treats Bittensor like it should already look like a fully mature system. That’s just not how these networks evolve. Some subnets will fail, others will find real traction. The only thing that matters is whether real demand is emerging anywhere in the system.
And once you actually look at that, the “ponzi” framing falls apart pretty quickly. We're still early, and Justin's post is a frail argument.
$TAO
Your prop firm profits when you lose. Read that again.
$TAO'S SN8 just made that model obsolete.
I've been watching @VantaSN8 since launch and what's unfolding here deserves way more attention than it's getting.
The prop trading industry is a $2B+ machine built on one ugly truth: the house wins when traders fail.
Opaque rules that shift after you're profitable. Payouts that get "reviewed" the moment you request withdrawal. Consistency rules nobody told you about until you passed. Topstep, FunderPro, FundedNext, the idea is the same everywhere. Fees in, traders out.
@0xarrash and @taoshiio looked at this and said: what if the entire infrastructure was open source, payouts were onchain, and rules were enforced by code instead of some back office?
That's @VantaTrading.
One-step evaluation. 8% profit target. 100% profit split, not 80, not 90, one hundred percent. Scaling up to $2.5M.
Weekly payouts verified through blockchain.
Every rule publicly inspectable on GitHub.
No discretionary enforcement.
No human gatekeeping your withdrawal.
And here's what caught my eye from a Bittensor perspective:
SN8 has already burned roughly 13,000 alpha in revenue at an average price around $10 since mid-November.
With zero active marketing spend. None. That's pure organic product-market fit generating real protocol revenue before they've even turned on the growth engine.
Now they're ramping @VantaTrading marketing to $50k/month. Targeting 500-1000 new traders onboarding monthly by next quarter.
But that's only phase one.
@HyperscaledHQ is coming in Q2 and this is where it gets really interesting. Hyperscaled connects funded accounts directly to live trading on @HyperliquidX. Permissionless. No centralized onboarding. Traders trade on Hyperliquid, performance gets evaluated transparently at the execution layer.
Anyone can spin up a prop firm miner on SN8 using Hyperscaled infrastructure. Affiliates bring traders, earn margins, no heavy lifting. Multiple entities are already in conversations to launch on it.
They're also building Hyperscaled for the agent economy.
AI trading agents will be able to connect accounts and trade on Hyperliquid through the network.
Think about where that goes when you combine it with what's happening on SN6 with @numinous_ai forecasting agents.
And then there's @GroundLayerHQ on SN20 structured capital formation for the Bittensor ecosystem. The capital layer for the Bittensor economy is coming to Subnet 20. Built by @taoshiio & @teamrizzoai.
OTC deals with defined discounts, lock schedules, smart contract enforcement. Fund managers as miners, earning rewards based on AUM. Institutional-grade capital flowing into subnets without disrupting spot markets.
Step back and look at what @taoshiio is assembling:
SN8, decentralized prop trading infrastructure generating real revenue
SN20, institutional capital formation layer
Vanta Trading, live consumer product onboarding traders now
Hyperscaled, permissionless funding layer on Hyperliquid
GroundLayer, structured investment pipeline
This is a deck. It's shipping. Revenue is flowing. Alpha is burning. Infrastructure is compounding.
The prop firm industry spent a decade extracting from traders. Bittensor is replacing it with a system where performance is the only thing that matters and every payout is provable.
If you're a trader tired of playing someone else's rigged game https://t.co/X4W9UgajXo
If you're watching Bittensor and still sleeping on SN8, the numbers are about to get very loud.
$TAO
@VantaTrading@VantaSN8@HyperscaledHQ@0xarrash@taoshiio
Vanta Trading is LIVE 🚨
The Vanta Difference:
• 100% profit splits
• Scaling up to $2.5m
• 1-step evaluation, 8% profit target
• Weekly payouts, verifiable through decentralized technology
The Vanta Evaluation is built to test your trading skill, not endurance. No hidden rules and designed by traders, for traders.
For a limited time, we’re offering special launch pricing:
• $25k account - $149
• $50k account - $249
• $100k account - $349
Get started today 👉 https://t.co/CKorWiK4YW
I have to say I haven't had this many back-to-back meetings with subnet owners since I was handing out emissions. 🤑
It's been a lot of fun and I've noticed some pretty significant things since back then;
1.) The subnets have matured so much! The business models, technology, IM's, use cases and overall output get better by the day.
2.) The teams are all top notch! The sheer talent in the ecosystem never ceases to impress.
3.) Everyone, and I mean everyone, is eye on the prize toward their own individual sn goals/milestones. Not one meeting have I heard teams complain about recent price action or something external to their mission.
#Bittensor is changing the world. And every subnet owner is racing to make their mark! It's incredible to watch and participate. 🫡
If you're a subnet owner, and we have not yet touched base, please send me a DM. I would love the opportunity to sync up!
Let's keep pushing $TAO 👊
$TAO is so much more.
I watch @0xarrash closely have been since launch. What they’re doing with @VantaSN8 is impressive, truly.
The model is powerful, Real profits pay traders. Excess gets burned. Emissions stop overpaying and stop dumping.
As @VantaTrading onboards more traders with USD onramps, profits will scale, burn will drop, and the system can sustain more inflows than outflows. And we can see that.
This is what decentralized systems look like. Not everyone agrees. People calling each other out. Then everyone goes right back to building. For me that’s healthy.
And the Taoshi stack is the part people are sleeping on: @VantaSN8 is the engine (verification + payouts + rules). @VantaTrading is the front door like the distribution. @0x_Markets is the broader decentralized marketplace itself. @GlitchFinancial is the growth engine.
Shipping in public like this is a rare thing. They’ve said they’ll publish SN8 financials in 2026 and do Spaces walking through inflows, outflows, metrics, and growth. What more do you want!
Real products.
Real revenue path.
Real accountability.
Give them credit.
Someone needs to launch a "Retards of Bittensor" subnet, where every retard in the $TAO ecosystem mines by just being themselves. Only snag? Protocol caps at 256 slots, and let's be honest, we've got WAY more qualified candidates than that. Tag your favorite TAO retard.
we are now completely in the black on our @VantaSN8 position at Bittensor Fund I.
the highest we bought is 0.16/TAO (April).
the lowest we bought is 0.03/TAO (Nov).
the chart post- taoflow implementation is strong. currently yielding 50%+ APY on top validators. this has been, and will be, our largest subnet position as the subnet rally kicks off.
@0xarrash and his team are absolutely relentless. @VantaTrading will be the first of many hedge funds built on this infrastructure. signals integrated to @GlitchFinancial for one-click retail participation. liquidity from @0x_Markets for trading. the ecosystem is 🍌
if you are a talented trader, you can launch your hedge fund here. if you are a pocketed investor, you can fund a hedge fund here.
complete transparency. eat what you kill. a trader's dream. an investor's playground. exactly the way it should be.
#bittensor $TAO $dTAO
🧵 1/4
The future of trading? Forex, on-chain, for everyone.
@taoshiio is the FTMO of Bittensor. No abusive entry fees. No bosses. Just skill vs. skill. Prove your edge, earn capital. The prop game just got real.
#TAO#Forex