General Trading Rules

The maximum total loss per trading idea is 2% of the initial account balance, including floating and realized loss.

A trading idea is one or several trades on the same instrument and in the same direction, opened as part of one trading decision.

You cannot split one position into several orders to bypass the risk limit.

Example: on a $100,000 account, the maximum loss per trading idea is $2,000. If a trader opens several EURUSD BUY trades as one idea, the total loss across those trades must not exceed $2,000.

Trading bots, Expert Advisors (EAs), signal bots, trade copiers, order copiers, and automatic trade-management services are prohibited.

The trader must make trading decisions independently and trade each account individually.

The following is also prohibited:

• copying trades between your Era Trade challenges;

• copying trades between evaluation and funded accounts;

• copying other traders’ trades or using signal services;

• giving the account to a third party to manage;

• passing challenges with synchronized trades or one group strategy.

VPS and VPN services are allowed only for stable and secure access to the account. They cannot be used to bypass rules, hide links between accounts, or copy trades.

Example: opening a trade manually from a VPS is allowed. Connecting a bot or copier that opens trades automatically instead of the trader is not allowed.

By default, holding positions over the weekend is prohibited.

For Forex, Metals, Indices and Commodities, this rule applies during both the challenge stage and the funded stage. Positions must be closed before market close on Friday.

For Crypto / Bybit, this rule applies only at the funded stage. During the challenge stage, crypto positions may be held over the weekend.

Example: if a trader is completing a Forex challenge, positions must be closed before market close on Friday. If a trader is completing a Bybit challenge, weekend holding is allowed during the challenge stage, but funded-stage positions must also be closed before the weekend.

News trading is allowed during the challenge stage if it does not violate other Era Trade rules.

On funded accounts, traders must not open or close trades 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after red-folder news affecting the instrument.

Red-folder news means high-impact events marked in red in the Forex Factory economic calendar.

For Forex, Metals, Indices and Commodities, red-folder news for the relevant currencies and instruments is counted.

For Crypto / Bybit, only US red-folder news is counted, because it has the strongest impact on overall crypto-market risk.

• First violation: profit made during the restricted news window is removed without closing the account.

• Repeated or systematic violations: the account may be closed without payout eligibility.

Example: if Forex Factory shows a red-folder USD event, a funded trader must not open or close trades on USD-related instruments within 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the event.

Bybit challenges are also subject to separate Bybit platform rules: the connected API key and assigned sub-account must not be deleted, modified, or used for another challenge; requesting or adding demo funds is prohibited; changing the USDT balance is prohibited.

Only Era Trade-supported USDT Perpetual / USDT Futures pairs are allowed on Bybit. Spot, Options, USDC pairs, inverse contracts, and unsupported instruments are not counted and may lead to a rule breach.

Trades in low-liquidity assets, low-cap assets, Innovation Zone instruments, or trades with unrealistic demo execution may be manually reviewed and subject to PnL adjustment.

Detailed rules are explained in the “Bybit Platform” section.

Hedging is prohibited when it is used to bypass Era Trade rules or artificially hide risk.

Within one account, it is prohibited to hold opposite positions on the same instrument at the same time.

It is also prohibited to open opposite or offsetting positions across different accounts if those accounts are linked to the same trader.

Example: opening BUY EURUSD and SELL EURUSD at the same time on one account is not allowed. Opening BUY EURUSD on one account and SELL EURUSD on another account to hide risk or bypass drawdown rules is also not allowed.

Martingale is prohibited. A trader may not increase risk or position size after a losing trade on the same instrument.

A trader may hold a maximum of 3 losing positions on one trading instrument only if the position size is not increased and the total risk stays within the 2% trading-idea risk limit.

Example 1 — allowed:
EURUSD Buy
Position 1 — 2 lots
Position 2 — 2 lots
Position 3 — 2 lots
The position size is not increased, so this is not considered martingale.

Example 2 — prohibited:
EURUSD Buy
Position 1 — 2 lots
Position 2 — 2.5 lots
Position 3 — 3 lots
The position size increases after a losing entry, so this is considered martingale.

Consequences: after the first violation, profit made through martingale is removed. After the second and any further violation, the account is closed without payout eligibility.

High-frequency trading is prohibited.

A violation includes:

• opening 3 or more trades within one minute;

• using HFT, latency arbitrage, tick scalping, or strategies that exploit execution speed, quote delays, or demo-environment conditions;

• systematically closing trades in less than 3 minutes without proper risk management.

Scalping is allowed if the trader uses Stop Loss, follows the 2% trading-idea risk limit, and does not violate the trade-frequency limit.

If a trade is closed by Stop Loss in under 3 minutes, this is not a violation by itself.

Example: a trader manually opens a trade with Stop Loss and closes it after 4 minutes — this is allowed. If a trader opens 3–5 trades per minute or systematically closes trades within a few seconds, this is considered high-frequency trading and is prohibited.

Every trading account must have at least one trade every 30 days.

If there is no trading activity for more than 30 days, the account is considered inactive and may be closed.

Example: if a trader does not open any trade for 30 days, the account may be blocked as inactive.

Era Trade prohibits gambling-style trading and “all or nothing” behavior.

It is prohibited to use margin equal to 50% or more of the initial challenge balance in one trade or one trading idea.

Such trades are considered excessive risk and a violation of risk-management rules.

Example: on a $100,000 challenge, a trader cannot open one trade or one trading idea that uses $50,000 or more in margin.