Prop desk rules

Every account has two live limits: a maximum daily loss and a maximum total loss. Both are measured on equity, which counts open positions and floating profit or loss. If your equity touches either floor, the account is breached: every order is cancelled, every position is closed, and the account is over. You never owe a trading loss. A breach only ends the account, and you can start a new one at any time.

Evaluations run on the desk's own simulation engine, priced off the live Lighter order book. Instant funding skips the evaluation. A funded account is priced off the same live order book, and its profit is paid out in USDC.

The desk sells these routes. Every number below is read live from the desk.

The fee for each size is shown in the builder in the app. It is paid in USDC from your funding balance, once, with no subscription.

You can also build your own challenge: $2.5K, $5K, $10K, $25K, $50K in size, with no evaluation, one phase or two; a profit target from 4% to 12%; a daily loss from 3% to 8%; a total loss from 5% to 15%. On a two-phase build the second target is 60% of the first, never below 3%. A custom challenge is quoted live and always runs a trailing total-loss floor.

1. Buy. Pick a route and a size. The fee leaves your USDC funding balance and the account opens in the same terminal you already trade in.
2. Trade. Reach the profit target while staying above both loss floors. No minimum trading days.
3. Pass. Closed profit at or above the target, with no open position, passes the phase on the spot. Phase 2 of a two-phase route starts fresh at the starting balance.
4. Activate. Press Activate on the passed account. It is live at once. Instant funding starts here.
5. Get paid. Trade the funded account under the same floors, with no target, and request a payout whenever you are flat and your profit is above the payout line.

Starting balance

The size of the account you bought, for example $10,000. Every percentage rule is a percentage of it.

Balance

The starting balance plus closed (realised) results, fees and funding. Open positions are not in it.

Equity

Balance plus the floating result of every open position, net of what it would cost to close them at the live book: the taker fee, the spread and the depth. Both floors compare against equity.

High-water mark

The highest equity the account has ever recorded, floating profit included. It never falls.

Floor

An equity level. Equity at or below a floor is a breach.

Breach

The automatic close of every position and the permanent end of the account.

Flat

No open position on the account.

Both floors are live at all times, on a challenge and on a funded account. The engine checks them every second, on equity, so a floating loss can breach you without a single closed trade. A touch is enough. There is no grace period.

The daily allowance is a fixed dollar amount: the daily loss percentage of your starting balance. Each day at 00:00 UTC the engine records your equity as the day's anchor. The daily floor for the next 24 hours is that anchor minus the allowance.

The allowance does not shrink when you lose or grow when you win. Only the anchor moves, once a day.

The total-loss floor trails your high-water mark. It sits the total loss percentage of your starting balance below the highest equity you have reached, and it only ever moves up. A funded account always runs this trailing floor, whatever its evaluation ran.

Floating profit lifts the high-water mark too, so a winning position that you give back can raise the floor under you. Treat every new high as a new starting balance.

When equity reaches either floor, the engine acts on its own:

1. Every open order is cancelled.
2. Every position is closed at market. The close walks the live Lighter book with the taker fee, on a challenge and on a funded account alike.
3. The account is marked breached and can never trade again.
4. No payout is possible from a breached account.

Breaches are permanent. There are no resets, appeals or soft breaches. You are never liable for more than the fee you paid. To try again, buy a new challenge.

The target applies to the evaluation only. A funded account has no target. The target is measured on closed profit: your balance must reach the starting balance plus the target, and the account must be flat. Floating profit does not count, so close the position to bank the pass.

There is no time limit. There is no minimum number of trading days. On a two-phase route, passing phase 1 moves you to phase 2 at once, with the balance, the high-water mark and the floors reset to the starting balance.

A passed evaluation, or an instant purchase, gives you an account with the same starting balance, the same two floors and the same breach rules, and no target. Press Activate to start it; it is live at once. Activation needs one thing: fewer than 3 live funded accounts on your profile. Close one to activate another. A passed account keeps its pass and never expires while it waits.

A funded account is priced off the live Lighter order book exactly like the evaluation. Your orders are signals to the desk: nothing is placed on Lighter under your name, and no capital is sent anywhere for you. Every order type you have on a perp account you have here: market, limit, stop, take profit, OCO, grid and TWAP. You can close a funded account yourself at any time. Close your positions and cancel your open orders first. Closing ends the account, so request a payout first if you are in profit.

You keep 90% of the profit on an evaluation route and 70% on instant funding. The split is locked into your account when you buy it and printed on every payout.

• Request a payout whenever the account is flat, with no open position and no open order, and your profit is above 1% of the starting balance. On a $10,000 account that line is $100.
• At least 7 days between two payouts on the same account.
• Every payout sweeps all profit above the starting balance. Your share is that profit times your split. There is no partial payout.
• The account is frozen while the request is open: it cannot place orders. The desk reviews it, then pays real USDC from the desk into your MUTEX funding balance.
• After a payout the balance, the high-water mark and both floors reset to the starting balance.
• The first payout on an evaluation route also returns the evaluation fee in full. A route with no evaluation has no fee to refund.

No payout from a challenge, a breached account, or an account the desk has frozen for review. One open request per account.

Leverage is capped per market. The cap is the same on every route and every size, on the evaluation and on the funded account: 20% of Lighter's own maximum for that market, never above 10x and never below 1x, rounded down to 0.1x. The terminal shows the exact live cap on each market. Every order is margined at the cap; trade a smaller size to run less leverage.

The cap does not depend on your route, your size or your equity. It moves only when Lighter changes its own margin table or the desk retunes the two numbers above.

Every perpetual market listed on Lighter is tradeable on a prop account: crypto, US stocks, indices, metals and FX, over two hundred markets today. The desk may exclude a market; the terminal shows what is open. Listings change as Lighter adds or removes them.

• Challenge fee. Paid once, in USDC, from your funding balance. Not refundable, except in full with the first payout on an evaluation route.
• Trading fees. The standard MUTEX perp fees at your tier. Every fill, on a challenge and on a funded account, also pays the spread and the depth of the live Lighter book, because that is what it is filled against.
• Funding. Hourly funding at the live Lighter rate, paid or received on every open position, on the challenge and on the funded account.
• Nothing else. No monthly, inactivity, data, platform or payout fee. Moving a payout out of MUTEX follows the exchange's normal withdrawal fee.

Fees and funding count toward your balance and equity, so they count toward the floors.

The two loss floors are the only trading rules. How you trade inside them is up to you.

Strategies are free. Conduct is not. The following ends the account, forfeits any payout, and can bar you from the desk:

1. Exploiting bugs, feed errors or latency. Using a platform fault, a bad price, a stale mark on the desk's engine or a venue outage to make money.
2. Account sharing or selling. One person, one account. Do not transfer, sell or share access.
3. Opposite hedging across accounts. Opening opposing positions on the same market in two or more prop accounts so that one passes while the other breaches.
4. Hedging on an outside venue. Taking the opposite side of a prop position on another exchange or wallet so that you carry no market risk.
5. Coordination with other traders. Offsetting positions or shared signals timed to game the floors.
6. Account cycling. Buying evaluation after evaluation to take one maximum-risk bet on each.
7. Gaming the payout reset. Structuring payout requests to move the high-water mark and the floors for you.
8. Wash trading. Trades with yourself or a partner where no real risk is taken.

The desk monitors accounts. If we see signs of the above we may ask you questions, freeze trading and payouts while we look, close the account with no refund, and refuse future purchases. Decisions are final.

No identity check is needed to buy, trade, activate or be paid. The age and place rules of the Terms of Use apply to the desk in full. Using the desk from a blocked place, with or without a VPN, ends the account with no refund and no payout. We may ask for information before a payout if we suspect a breach of these rules.

You may hold up to 10 open challenges and run up to 3 funded accounts at the same time, in any mix of sizes.

Challenge and funded. Both run on the desk's own engine. Fills walk the live Lighter order book at its real depth and spread, pay the standard fee, and pay hourly funding. Your orders are signals: no order is placed on Lighter under your name, and no capital is sent anywhere for you. The desk earns the challenge fee whether you pass or fail.

Hedging. The desk may hedge its own net exposure to funded accounts, with its own capital, on its own account on Lighter. It may hedge all of that exposure, part of it or none of it, at its own discretion. You have no claim on that account, its positions or its balance. How the desk hedges never changes your fills, your equity or your payout.

Payouts. A payout is paid in real USDC from the desk's own funds. It is a reward for your performance under these rules, not a return on capital you deposited.

Ownership. As the Terms say, you do not own the account, and you own no capital or position of the desk. The funded account measures your performance. Nothing here makes you an employee, partner or agent of the desk.

By buying a challenge you accept that:

1. Most traders do not pass. There is no guarantee of success.
2. The fee is a software fee. It comes back only with a first payout on an evaluation route.
3. A funded account runs the same floors and can be lost at any time.
4. Past results do not predict future results.
5. Crypto and leveraged markets move fast. Losses can be sudden and large.
6. You own no capital in a funded account, and you have no claim on the desk's funds or on any account the desk hedges with.
7. The desk may change these rules with notice. Your account keeps the rule set it was bought with. Desk-wide settings such as payout spacing and seat limits apply to every account and are shown in the app.

Questions about these rules, an account or a payout: [email protected]

The desk may update these rules with notice. The current version is always at mutex.trade/rules.

Every rule change is listed here with the date it took effect. Rules never change retroactively.

21 September 2026 · v1.1. The funded account is priced off the live Lighter book, like the evaluation; nothing is placed on Lighter under your name. Activation is instant and needs no perp wallet, seat or desk capital. The desk may hedge its own net exposure with its own capital on its own account. Leverage caps are 20% of Lighter's maximum per market, up to 10x and never below 1x, the same on every route. A payout needs profit above 1% of the starting balance and no open order.

20 September 2026 · v1.0. Initial rules. Three routes (Instant, 1-Step, 2-Step) and a custom builder. Fixed-dollar daily loss anchored at 00:00 UTC, trailing total loss on every route, closed-profit target with no time limit and no minimum days. Splits of 90% on evaluations and 70% on instant funding. Payouts on request, 7 days apart, full sweep, fee returned with the first evaluation payout.