ZoneX

ZoneX is a crypto evaluation firm whose accounts run on the trader's choice of thirteen exchanges — Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Phemex, Gate.io, CoinW, KuCoin, Bitget, Aster, Lighter, Pacifica and RISEx — in either a Futures configuration, with per-pair leverage up to about 100× on BTC and ETH, or a Spot configuration at 1× long-only. Challenges start at $10 on sizes of $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000, and the performance split is not fixed by the firm: 70%, 80% or 90% is chosen at purchase, as are a 2–4% daily loss limit in half-point steps and a 3–6% maximum drawdown. Funded capital reaches $400,000, the challenge has no minimum trading days and no profit target is published as a fixed figure — it too is recorded in the configuration bought.

Two ZoneX design choices make this unlike most crypto evaluations. First, a stop-loss is mandatory on every position, and the risk engine counts “committed open risk” — the worst case if every stop on the account were hit, including costs — against both the daily allowance and the drawdown headroom. A trader cannot sit inside the limits on paper while exposed beyond them. Second, that stop may sit no further than 90% of the simulated liquidation distance from entry, because “a stop placed on the liquidation line may never fire” once maintenance margin rises and funding eats the position. Liquidation itself ends the challenge immediately whether or not any drawdown limit was touched.

The free retry is worth planning around. If realised profit reached 5% at any point before failure, a second attempt at the same configuration is free — measured on closed filled trades only, so an unrealised peak given back does not count, and one retry per purchase. It is explicitly unavailable on any purchase made with a discount, coupon or promotional offer, which makes the headline promotion and the retry mutually exclusive. A Pre-Violation Warning add-on costing 20% of the fee flags trades that would breach a limit before execution, while stating plainly that it changes no rule and that silence from it is not a clearance.

ZoneX is unusually careful about what the fee buys: it is “a service fee for access to software and evaluation services”, no money arises during the challenge, and completion “does not create an automatic right to a Funded Trader Arrangement” — the funded stage needs an integrity review, a separate admission decision and a second approval. Once funded, payouts run in 14-day windows needing at least 4% window profit, with a 30% cap on the strongest day that delays a request rather than failing the account, a 3% buffer, a 5% maximum calculation per request and a $50 minimum. One discrepancy to resolve before buying: the challenge rules state the maximum drawdown floor is set once from the initial balance and “never moves”, while the builder page describes a 3–6% maximum that “trails the end-of-day realised high-water mark and locks at the starting balance”. Trading style is otherwise unrestricted: spot and perps, long and short, scalping to position trading, weekend and news trading, overnight holds, and hedging including opposite positions across a trader's own accounts. Expert advisors are allowed except where used for a prohibited practice.