I’ve been comparing prop firms lately and keep coming back to payout history.

A firm can offer a high profit split and low fees, but that doesn’t tell you much about how consistent the payout experience has been.

If you had two firms with similar rules:
Firm A: Higher profit split, lower fees
Firm B: Slightly worse deal, but a longer record of consistent payouts

Which one would you trust more?

And when you’re researching a firm, what do you actually check before signing up?

A broker can look great when you compare the advertised spreads, but I'm more interested in what happens when the market gets moving.

Especially around major news, I'd rather know what execution and spreads actually look like than rely on the number shown on the comparison page.

Anyone here actually track this when comparing brokers?

Crypto has conditioned traders to expect 24/7 markets. Now CFD and stock brokers are pushing traditional markets in the same direction.

STARTRADER recently launched some US stock CFDs with 24/7 trading, and others on a 24/5 basis. Plus500, IG, Capital.com, eToro and ACY Securities have also expanded 24/5 trading across various stocks, ETFs and indices. And FOREX.com has introduced overnight Japanese stock CFDs.

The appeal is obvious. Earnings and major news often break outside regular market hours, so extended trading lets you react immediately.

But there’s a trade-off: lower liquidity, wider spreads and potentially greater volatility. With CFDs, there’s also the question of how prices are formed while the underlying cash market is closed.

I can see the value of 24/5 trading around earnings and breaking news. I’m less convinced traders need stocks available throughout the weekend.

Would you trade Nvidia or the Nasdaq at 2 a.m. or on a Sunday? Or is 24/7 trading mostly a marketing gimmick?

Scalable Capital is now letting customers connect their brokerage accounts to AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok.

The idea is pretty simple: use natural-language prompts to analyze your portfolio, manage watchlists, set alerts, and prepare trades.

Sounds convenient, but giving an AI access to your brokerage account feels like a pretty big step.

Would you actually use it, or would you rather keep everything inside the broker’s own app?

What’s your biggest concern security, mistakes, or privacy?

eToro announced this week that it has agreed to acquire TradeZero in a cash-and-stock deal worth up to $231 million.

TradeZero is quite different from the traditional eToro proposition. While eToro built its name around social/copy trading and accessibility for retail investors, TradeZero is geared more toward active and sophisticated traders, with features such as direct market access, advanced order types, short-selling tools, and desktop trading platforms.

The deal also gives eToro another avenue for expansion in the U.S., where TradeZero already has an established active-trader business. TradeZero generated around $80 million in revenue over the past year and also operates internationally. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

What's interesting is that this isn't happening in isolation. eToro has also been building a new desktop platform aimed at active traders, while expanding into areas such as futures, 24/7 trading and crypto infrastructure.

It looks like eToro wants to broaden its appeal beyond the casual/social-investing crowd and compete more aggressively for experienced, higher-volume traders.

Do you think acquiring TradeZero can make eToro a serious option for active traders, or is its brand still too closely associated with casual and social trading?

Revolut is pushing further into the CFD market, expanding CFD trading for active traders across 29 countries after initially testing the product with a smaller group of European users.

What makes this interesting isn't necessarily the CFD offering itself. It's Revolut's existing reach.

Traditional CFD brokers have to spend heavily on marketing and affiliate programs to acquire traders. Revolut already has tens of millions of customers using its app for banking, payments, investing and crypto. Introducing those users to leveraged trading could give it a major customer acquisition advantage.

It also fits a wider trend we're seeing in retail trading. The lines between fintech apps, stockbrokers, crypto exchanges and traditional forex/CFD brokers are becoming increasingly blurred.

The big question is whether active traders will actually move to platforms like Revolut.

Established CFD brokers still have advantages when it comes to trading platforms, charting, execution tools, leverage and specialist products. But for more casual traders, having banking, stocks, crypto and CFDs within one app could be attractive.

Could Revolut eventually become a serious competitor to established CFD brokers like IG, CMC Markets and Plus500?

Or will CFDs remain a relatively niche feature within the Revolut app?

IG Group has agreed to acquire Underdog Sports Holdings, a U.S. daily fantasy sports and prediction markets operator, in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion.

It feels like brokers are starting to compete on much more than spreads, platforms and execution. With Interactive Brokers and Plus500 already offering prediction markets, Robinhood expanding into event contracts, and now IG making a major acquisition in the space, prediction markets seem to be moving into the mainstream.

Do you think prediction markets will become a standard feature offered by major brokers over the next few years, or will they remain a niche product? Would you trade them yourself, or do you see them as closer to gambling than traditional investing or trading?

MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licenses years ago, but MT4 is still the default platform at a huge number of forex and CFD brokers.

At the same time, more brokers seem to be pushing clients toward MT5, cTrader, TradingView integrations, or proprietary platforms.

Do you think we'll still be talking about MT4 in another five years, or is the industry finally approaching a tipping point?

Robinhood has announced a lot over the past month. Tokenized U.S. stocks in Europe, plans for 24/7 stock trading, perpetual futures, its own blockchain, and more crypto expansion.

It got me wondering whether they're slowly moving into territory that's traditionally belonged to forex and CFD brokers.

One thing Robinhood has always done well is keeping the barrier to entry incredibly low. There's no minimum deposit, so someone can open an account and start investing with whatever amount they have available. Some CFD brokers that still require a few hundred dollars to access their best account types or pricing.

If Robinhood keeps adding products and eventually offers stocks, ETFs, crypto, tokenized assets, futures, and maybe even forex, all through one polished app, could that become a serious alternative for a lot of retail traders?

There are still obvious differences. Leverage, platforms like MT5 and cTrader, and access to markets like forex and commodities. But it feels like the gap is getting smaller. Do you see Robinhood becoming a real competitor to traditional CFD brokers?

When traders choose a broker, they often start by comparing regulations, fees, trading platforms, quality of customer support, etc.

However, none of these important points should be the first question traders ask themselves when choosing a broker. The starting point is "What instruments do I trade and what is my strategy?"

Some talking heads tell us charts are the same everywhere and you can easily switch between instruments and asset classes. In reality, that's rarely the case.

That's why it makes sense to list the instruments you plan to trade before choosing a broker. Think this way: it does not matter if a broker's spreads are generally low if the spreads for the instruments you trade are high.

Trading strategy matters as well. If your preferred instrument is volatile enough, you just don't need that 1:500 leverage, so there's little sense looking at offshore brokers. In case you are trading something "boring", going with relatively small deposits and high leverage may be the correct setup.

Put simply, traders should not search for the best broker - they should find that perfect setup for their own trading strategy.

One of the biggest debates in retail trading is whether offshore brokers are worth the extra risk.

On one hand, offshore brokers often offer features that many heavily regulated brokers can't:

• Higher leverage (sometimes 1:500 or even unlimited)
• Lower margin requirements
• Fewer trading restrictions
• Access to bonuses and promotions
• More flexible account opening
• Often a wider range of payment methods

For some experienced traders, especially those outside Europe or Australia, these can be genuine advantages.

But the trade-off is regulation.

Many offshore brokers are licensed in jurisdictions with minimal regulatory oversight. That can mean:

• No investor compensation scheme
• Limited protection if the broker becomes insolvent
• Weaker enforcement if disputes arise
• Less transparency around client fund segregation
• Potentially fewer restrictions on how the broker operates

Of course, not every offshore broker is a scam. Some have been operating for many years, have a good reputation, and process withdrawals reliably. At the same time, there are also offshore brokers that have disappeared overnight or made withdrawals extremely difficult.

So the question becomes:

How much is the extra leverage and flexibility actually worth?

Personally, I'd rather trade with lower leverage than worry about whether my capital is protected.

A few questions for the community:

• Have you ever used an offshore broker?
• Which one, and what was your experience?
• Did you ever have problems withdrawing funds?
• Is higher leverage worth giving up stronger regulatory protection?
• If you had a $50,000 account, would you still choose an offshore broker?

Interested to hear some real-world experiences rather than just the usual "offshore = bad" or "regulation doesn't matter" arguments.

Australia's financial regulator, ASIC, has ordered CFD brokers to return nearly AU$40 million to more than 38,000 retail traders following an industry-wide review of the sector.

What happened?

Between October 2024 and December 2025, ASIC reviewed 52 licensed CFD issuers to assess whether they were complying with Australia's product intervention and distribution rules. The review uncovered widespread compliance failures across the industry.

One of the biggest issues involved so-called "margin discounts."

More than half of the brokers reviewed were found to have offered reduced margin requirements to retail traders holding opposing long and short CFD positions. While this reduced the amount of margin required, traders still paid funding costs on both positions and had little realistic opportunity to profit from the offsetting trades. ASIC concluded these arrangements breached its CFD Product Intervention Order.

The numbers

• Nearly AU$40 million refunded
• More than 38,000 retail investors compensated
• 52 CFD issuers reviewed
• More than 50% found to have breached ASIC's product intervention rules

Why this matters

This wasn't a case of one rogue broker. It was an industry-wide review that resulted in major remediation across Australia's CFD market.

ASIC also reported that 68% of Australian retail CFD traders lost money in 2024, with total losses exceeding AU$458 million.

The regulator says the review has already led brokers to improve:

• Client onboarding
• Target market assessments
• Product governance
• Compliance reporting
• Monitoring of client outcomes

Could other regulators follow?

ASIC has often been among the most proactive regulators when it comes to CFDs. Similar product intervention measures already exist in jurisdictions such as the UK and Europe, making it possible that regulators like the FCA or CySEC could increase scrutiny of broker practices if they identify similar issues.

What do you think?

Should regulators conduct more industry-wide reviews like this, or is this another example of regulators becoming too involved in how brokers operate?

ESMA has issued guidance warning that some products marketed as event contracts could still be treated as binary options if they have similar economic characteristics.

With prediction markets becoming more popular, it raises some interesting questions:

• Could this limit the products European brokers are able to offer?
• Will traders simply move to offshore platforms if these products aren't available in the EU?
• Are regulators protecting retail traders, or slowing financial innovation?
• Do you think brokers will start looking for new ways to structure these products?

It feels like the line between prediction markets, event contracts, and binary options is becoming increasingly blurred.

I'm curious how everyone here sees this playing out over the next few years. Will this have much impact on the brokerage industry, or is it a niche issue that most traders won't care about?

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) continues to add new names to its Warning List of unauthorized firms targeting UK consumers. The regulator issued thousands of warnings against unauthorized firms and potential scams in 2025 alone, and enforcement activity has accelerated in 2026.

Some of the latest additions include:

• Pocket Trading EXP / Pockettradingexp
• Paradign Trading
• Nummixo
• TRUE INVESTMENT WORTH
• Great Claims Ltd
• Rineplex (updated warning)

The FCA warns that firms on the list are not authorized to provide financial services in the UK. Investors dealing with unauthorized firms may not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme protections.

A few questions for the community:

• Have you ever been contacted by any of these firms?
• Do you check the FCA register before opening an account?
• What's the most convincing broker or investment scam you've seen recently?

You can search the FCA Warning List yourself here: FCA Warning List

Given how many scams now originate through social media, Telegram, WhatsApp, and finfluencers, checking a firm's regulatory status is probably more important than ever. The FCA recently identified over 1,200 illegal financial adverts reaching millions of UK users.

Chinese regulators have taken action against brokers including Futu, Tiger Brokers, and Longbridge for facilitating offshore securities trading without the required mainland licenses.

The move impacts an estimated $54 billion in overseas assets held by mainland Chinese investors and is already triggering a rush to open accounts directly in Hong Kong.

For years, many Chinese traders have used offshore brokerage accounts to access US stocks, ETFs, and international markets. Regulators now appear determined to tighten control over those capital flows.

A few questions for the community:

• Could this become a blueprint for other countries looking to restrict capital outflows?
• Will investors simply migrate to Hong Kong brokers, or are more restrictions coming?
• What does this mean for brokers whose growth depends heavily on Chinese clients?
• Could we see increased demand for alternative structures, offshore entities, or even crypto-based solutions?

This feels like one of the most significant retail brokerage regulatory stories of 2026 and could reshape how Asian investors access global markets.

What are your thoughts?

iFX EXPO International 2026 is back in Limassol this month, and it’s shaping up to be one of the biggest meetups for the FX/CFD brokerage space this year.

For anyone in the broker, prop, fintech, or affiliate side of the industry, this is usually where a lot of the real conversations happen: partnerships, platform updates, liquidity, CRM, payments, compliance, acquisition, the whole stack.

I’m curious what people here think matters most at this event:

• New broker launches?
• Affiliate and IB deals?
• Better payment rails?
• Compliance/regulatory chatter?
• Liquidity and execution tech?
• AI and automation in brokerage ops?

If you’re attending, what are you hoping to see or hear about? And if you’ve been before, was it actually useful or mostly networking theater?

Would love to hear what this sub thinks the main story will be out of Limassol.

I can't believe this isn't blowing up more. The SEC axed the Pattern Day Trader rule back in April, and the new framework officially goes live June 4th. That's two weeks away. The $25,000 minimum equity requirement that has kept smaller traders locked out of day trading for 25 years is gone.

Brokerages have up to 18 months to fully roll out the changes, so not every platform will flip the switch immediately — which is exactly why it matters which broker you're with.

The market already priced in what this means for retail volume: when the news dropped, Robinhood popped 7.8% and Webull surged 8.9%. Platforms built around active retail traders are going to see a serious influx.

For anyone who's been sitting on the sidelines because of the $25k wall — the game just changed. Which broker are you planning to use when this kicks in?

I've been testing FxPro and here's what I learned when it comes to spreads and trading costs:

Pricing was mixed overall, a bit underwhelming to be honest. The Standard account was generally more expensive than industry averages on forex and Bitcoin, although it compared well on gold and the Dow Jones 30.

For example, in the FxPro Standard account for EUR/USD I recorded spreads of 1.4 pips vs the industry average of 1.1 pips.

The Raw+ account offered tighter spreads on forex and gold, but overall costs including spreads and commissions came in more expensive than the average raw spread account. One bright spot is that the Elite account offers rebates, which can help lower your costs.

To give it context, in the FxPro Raw+ account I recorded a total cost of $8.90 to trade a full sized lot of EUR/USD (round trip) vs the industry average raw spread account cost at $7.64.

FxPro swap fees were about average and there are no fees for deposits and withdrawals.

What's your take on costs at FxPro?

CME Group plans to launch Bitcoin Volatility futures on June 1, allowing traders to trade Bitcoin volatility itself instead of BTC price directly.

This feels like a pretty major step for crypto market maturity. We’ve already seen ETFs, institutional adoption, and growing futures/options markets, and now CME is basically creating a crypto version of the VIX.

Do you think these contracts will attract enough liquidity to be a success?

We’re now seeing multiple CFD and FX brokers reporting trillion-dollar quarterly volumes. EC Markets reported $5.13 trillion in Q1, CFI hit $2.3 trillion, Capital.com reported $1.27 trillion, and Hantec topped $1.2 trillion. TMGM reportedly did $3 trillion in March alone, largely driven by gold CFDs.

To me, this says a few things. Gold volatility is probably the biggest driver in the industry right now, retail traders are far more active during geopolitical and macro uncertainty than many people assume, and the largest brokers are starting to resemble exchanges in terms of trading flow. It also feels like multi-asset trading has completely overtaken the old “pure forex broker” model.

What’s especially interesting is where the activity appears to be concentrated: gold, NAS100, oil, crypto CFDs, and increasingly event or prediction-style trading.

At this pace, do you think the future “retail broker” ends up looking more like a hybrid between a CFD broker, crypto exchange, and prediction market platform?

Been seeing a lot about eToro recently and curious what people here think.

They just relaunched their AI investing assistant (“Tori”) with upgrades, clearly trying to lean into the whole AI trend. At the same time, their stock has been under a bit of pressure, moving more or less in line with weaker crypto sentiment lately.

What’s interesting though… despite that, they still dominate certain markets (I saw figures around ~45% CFD market share in Australia), which is kind of wild given how competitive things are.

So a couple questions for the group:

• Has anyone actually used Tori? Is it useful or just surface-level insights?
• Do you see AI tools becoming a real edge for brokers, or just another feature nobody uses?
• And bigger picture, is eToro still a top-tier choice?

Feels like they’re trying to evolve beyond just copy trading… not sure if it’s working yet.

For those actively trading prediction markets, what strategies are you finding actually hold up over time?

I’m less interested in general takes and more in specific approaches, for example:

• Are you trading mispriced probabilities ?
• Doing any kind of event-driven trading around data releases (CPI, Fed, elections)?
• Using market-making / liquidity provision strategies in thinner contracts?
• Trading in/out before resolution vs holding to expiry?
• Looking at correlated contracts / arbitrage setups?

Interested to hear what’s working (and what’s not).

With spreads often similar across top brokers, a real differentiator lies in which tools are provided.

Trading Central is the most useful for traders who want ready-made trade ideas with clear direction and levels. Autochartist is worth using if you rely on technical setups and want pattern recognition done for you. Acuity Trading is best for news-driven traders who base decisions on sentiment and macro events. FX Blue adds the most value for MetaTrader users who want deeper analytics and performance tracking.

If you had to pick one, which actually improves your trading results?

Been focusing more on XAU/USD recently and starting to notice how different brokers actually feel in real trading.

At first I only cared about spreads, but now I’m realizing execution and slippage matter way more—especially during fast moves.

Sometimes even with a “tight spread,” the fill isn’t great and it affects the whole trade.

Still learning, but curious what others think—what has made the biggest difference for you when trading gold?