Most traders ask the wrong question about My Forex Funds. They ask whether it was a scam, a bargain, or a good shortcut. The better question is harder, and more useful, what kind of trading model lets a firm sell access to capital while keeping the execution opaque enough that most customers can't tell what they're really buying?

That's why My Forex Funds matters beyond its own collapse. It's a lens on the simulated prop-firm model, the fee stack behind it, and the brutal reality that a funded account is not the same thing as a real edge. If you want capital in trading, you need to understand the product first, then decide whether it deserves your money at all.

What My Forex Fund Actually Was

My Forex Funds was founded in 2020 to give skilled traders worldwide access to simulated capital, and its own about page now says the firm is not currently operating. That alone should tell you how fast this corner of the market can change, and how risky it is to treat a prop firm like a stable broker or a long-term business partner. The company also became one of the most visible failures in retail FX after regulators froze assets tied to a case described in public reporting as involving $310 million in alleged fraud, according to the firm's own about page and related public reporting on the case (My Forex Funds about page).

The important point is not to reduce My Forex Funds to a single moral label. It was a prop-firm product built around simulated trading, evaluation gates, and the promise that a trader could prove skill without needing a large personal account. That pitch hit a nerve with retail traders who didn't qualify for live funding, didn't want to risk their own capital, or wanted a path to a bigger notional account faster than self-funding would allow.

What the business model was really selling

The core sell was access, not ownership. Traders weren't buying a brokerage account in the classic sense, they were paying for a chance to clear a challenge and earn the right to trade a funded simulated account under the firm's rules.

Practical rule: If a firm sells you the dream of capital before it explains the mechanics of execution, fees, and counterparty risk, you're not buying capital. You're buying an attempt.

That distinction matters because the appeal of My Forex Funds came from aspiration, while the operational risk came from structure. Once you understand that, the rest of the discussion stops being about whether one brand was “good” or “bad,” and starts being about whether the model itself deserves trust.

How the Evaluation Worked Step by Step

A four-step infographic illustrating the MFF evaluation process for obtaining a live forex trading account.

The evaluation was built to test discipline under pressure, not just raw direction calls. Independent reporting on My Forex Funds described 37,000 live evaluation accounts and more than $14,000,000 paid out in February 2023 alone, which gives you a sense of how large the funnel was before the model broke down (The Prop Journalist analysis). The same reporting said the Phase 1 pass rate was 19%, the Phase 2 pass rate was 42% for those who advanced, and the overall evaluation-to-funded conversion rate was about 8%.

Phase 1 and Phase 2 in plain English

Phase 1 asked a trader to hit the first profit target without violating drawdown rules. Phase 2 repeated the test with a new account and a different target, but the logic stayed the same, trade well enough, protect downside, and prove you can repeat it. That two-step structure was common across most prop firms in that era because it filtered for consistency while reducing the firm's exposure to traders who got lucky once.

The challenge account sizes varied by program, but the mechanics were familiar. The trader had to manage lot size, session timing, and open risk so the account stayed inside the firm's rulebook while still producing enough profit to clear the target.

Why the rules were designed that way

Prop firms use evaluation rules to separate skill from randomness. The daily loss cap stops revenge trading, the overall drawdown rule punishes sloppy risk, and the target forces the trader to create measurable profit, not just survive.

That sounds fair until you realize the rules also shape behavior in a way that can distort actual trading. Traders often oversize near the finish line, cut winners early, or force low-quality setups because the clock is ticking. The model doesn't just measure discipline, it creates stress that can expose whether that discipline is real.

What the trader got after passing

Once a trader passed, the prize was a funded account inside the firm's simulated environment. That meant the trader was not suddenly stepping into a traditional brokerage relationship with transparent market execution and direct custody of capital. They were entering a structure where the firm still controlled the rules, the payout schedule, and the simulation framework.

Passing the challenge was never the same thing as proving you can trade live money cleanly. It was proof that you could survive a rule-based screening process.

Real Costs Behind the Entry Fee

The challenge fee is only the sticker price. That is the easy part. The cost starts with the first entry and keeps running until you pass, reset, or quit after paying for an attempt that produced nothing but a lesson in how expensive access can be.

The fee structure matters because you are not buying capital outright. You are buying a chance to earn a payout inside a rule set the firm controls, and that chance disappears the moment you break a rule. If you want to compare offers fairly, judge the full attempt cycle, not just the headline price. Resets, activation fees, and payout conditions all belong in the same calculation.

Why the fee stack changes the economics

A “low-cost” challenge gets expensive fast when you need more than one attempt. Every failed run means another entry fee. In some programs, the bill keeps climbing because you also pay an activation fee before the funded account is even live.

The profit split matters too, because it determines how much of your upside you keep after you finally get through the gate.

That is why fee math belongs beside performance math. A firm can advertise a friendly starting price and still create a painful cost structure once repeated attempts and post-pass hurdles are included.

If you want a clean way to compare the sticker price of a challenge against the economics of entry, compare Suby's pricing at compare Suby's pricing and read the fee stack as total access cost, not as a one-time purchase.

What serious traders should watch for

  • Initial challenge fee: The price to enter the evaluation.
  • Reset cost: What you pay when the first attempt fails.
  • Activation fee: Any extra charge before the funded account goes live.
  • Profit split: The share you keep after you finally earn.

Those four lines tell you more about the business model than any marketing page ever will. A firm that makes entry easy but withdrawals hard is not lowering your cost. It is shifting the cost to the back end, where traders feel it after the excitement of the challenge wears off.

Pass Rates and What They Tell You

An 8% conversion rate is a hard filter. It is not a casual hurdle. The same reporting that showed 19% pass rate in Phase 1 and 42% in Phase 2 also showed that only about 1 in 12.5 evaluations reached a funded account. That should end the fantasy that prop firms are a shortcut for average traders.

Why low pass rates are structural, not accidental

Drawdown rules force traders to size smaller than their instincts want. Time pressure pushes them into marginal setups. Lot-size incentives tempt them to overtrade when they are close to the target. Put those together and even decent traders fail for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they can read a chart.

The cleaner read is that a prop evaluation tests process quality under stress. If your edge cannot survive a loss cap, a time window, and a fixed target, then your edge is not ready for outside capital yet. That is the structural problem with the simulated-prop-firm model. It turns trader skill into a pass-or-fail screen, while the firm keeps control of the rules and the execution environment.

The four metrics you should track before paying anyone

For trading review, the most useful technical measures are Sharpe ratio, profit factor, expectancy, and maximum drawdown, because they separate raw return from risk and trade quality. Sharpe is excess return divided by return volatility, expectancy is usually calculated as (win rate × average win) – (loss rate × average loss), profit factor is gross profit divided by gross loss, and maximum drawdown is the peak-to-trough equity decline.

A Sharpe ratio above 1 is generally considered acceptable, and above 2 is strong, while drawdown below 20% is often used as a risk-control benchmark in performance reviews. If you cannot produce that kind of internal audit on your own trading, do not hand money to a challenge account and hope the firm will validate your skill for you. Use your journal first, review your entries, and check whether your results stay stable when size, spread, and pressure change.

The point is simple. Pass rates matter because they expose how few traders can hold up under tight rules, but your own numbers matter more. If your journal does not show stable expectancy and controlled drawdown, you are not ready for prop capital. You are ready for more practice.

Why Simulated Execution Carries the Real Risk

My Forex Funds was never just a question of who got paid and who got blocked. The deeper issue was whether traders were dealing with a live market or with a controlled simulation dressed up as a funded opportunity. The CFTC alleged that Traders Global, doing business as My Forex Funds, offered retail customers the chance to become “professional traders” while the firm controlled simulated accounts and acted as the direct counterparty (CFTC complaint). That structure is the risk. It turns the firm into the referee, the venue, and the other side of the trade.

What that means for a trader

If one company controls the simulation and sits on the other side of the position, your results depend on its rules, its pricing assumptions, and its willingness to honor the outcome. That does not prove every trade was manipulated, but it does mean the trader is not dealing with a neutral execution environment. Anyone paying for a challenge should understand that conflict before funding an account.

Regulated spot-FX brokers usually make spreads, commissions, and execution paths clearer. That does not make them perfect, but it gives the trader a better chance of seeing what happens between the click and the fill. Simulated prop models often bury that machinery behind challenge rules, payout promises, and marketing that talks about access without explaining execution.

The disclosure checklist that matters

Use this before signup, not after the fee is gone.

  • Account type: Ask whether the setup is A-book, B-book, or simulated.
  • Fee structure: Find out what you pay to enter, reset, and activate.
  • Payout rules: Check how withdrawals work, when they are allowed, and what can void them.
  • Execution model: Look for plain-language disclosure on how orders are handled.

If those answers are vague, the advertised funded size does not matter. A bigger promise with thin disclosure is still a weak product.

For traders who want a cleaner comparison point, Colibri Trader's forex trade simulator shows how a simulator-based learning environment can spell out exactly what simulation is, what it is not, and where the limits sit. That clarity is what matters, not the label on the homepage.

How to Prepare So an Evaluation Sticks

You do not beat a prop challenge by hoping harder. You beat it by making your setup, risk, and review process boring enough to repeat. That starts with price action, because price action forces you to define where you enter, where you are wrong, and where you take money off the table before emotion gets involved.

Build the plan before the session starts

Use a written checklist around supply and demand zones, engulfing candles, and pin bars at key levels. If the chart does not give you one of your rules, skip the trade. No setup is better than a random setup with a clean-looking candle.

Write your daily loss cap and per-trade risk before the open. If the prop firm's limit is already fixed, make your personal limit tighter. That gives you room to survive a bad sequence without turning one bad session into a blown account.

Journal the same way the firm would judge you

Track the four metrics from earlier, Sharpe ratio, profit factor, expectancy, and maximum drawdown. That turns your journal from a diary into a scorecard. It also shows you whether your results come from real edge or one lucky burst of momentum.

Here is the prep sequence that holds up:

  1. Mark levels first. Map the day's supply and demand zones before you think about entries.
  2. Wait for confirmation. Use engulfing or pin-bar confirmation, not just proximity to a level.
  3. Cap the downside. Decide the loss limit before you click buy or sell.
  4. Review the trade. Log whether you followed the plan, not just whether you made money.

For traders who need structure, Colibri Trader's price-action curriculum and how to paper trade are useful examples of the kind of practice loop that should come before any paid challenge.

A checklist infographic titled How to Prepare featuring four steps for successful forex trading preparation and planning.

Where Traders Should Go From Here

My Forex Funds showed three things the hard way. Fee math matters. Simulated execution can hide more than it reveals. And your own numbers, not the firm's marketing, decide whether you're ready for outside capital. If a prop offer can't clearly show its account type, payout rules, and execution model, pass on it.

That's the standard for 2026, and it should be a hard one. Use prop firms as a test after your edge is proven, not as a substitute for skill. Before you pay another entry fee, build the price-action edge first, because capital follows skill, not the other way around.

For traders who want a cleaner path to that skill, Colibri Trader offers price-action-based education, paper trading guidance, and structured programs that focus on supply and demand, discipline, and money management. If you want to stop buying lottery tickets and start building a tradeable process, go there and train the part of the business you control.

If you're serious about trading, stop guessing at prop-firm terms and start building the edge that makes capital useful. Visit Colibri Trader for price-action education, paper-trading guidance, and structured programs that help you trade with more discipline before you risk another challenge fee.