“You
have a lot of prop firms… not even allowing gold to be traded anymore,”
that is how Philip H. van den Berg, co-founder and CEO of Rhodium FX, described
what he says is a growing structural problem quietly spreading across the
retail prop trading industry.
Singapore Summit: Meet the largest APAC brokers you know (and those you still don’t!)
Speaking in
a Thentick podcast interview, he argued that the gold market’s record-breaking
run is doing something the industry never prepared for: making ordinary retail
traders consistently profitable, and the economics of many prop firms simply
cannot absorb it.
The
observation cuts to a core tension that has been building for months. As gold prices
pushed to successive all-time highs, retail traders who had long struggled to pass
evaluation challenges suddenly found themselves on the right side of a single,
powerful trend. For prop firms whose business model depends on a majority of
traders failing or churning out before reaching payout thresholds, that is a
significant problem.
Philip, who
spent several years as COO of Dominion Markets before founding Rhodium, said
the response from many firms has been blunt: simply removing gold from the list
of tradeable instruments. The same volatility that prompted some prop firms to
delist the metal also forced liquidity providers to act, with Scope
Prime widening spreads following CME margin rule changes.
“We’re
seeing owners make money real quick and they pull a rug on the whole on the
whole system,” he said.
2-5 New
Prop Firms Opening Every Week
The gold
issue does not exist in isolation. Philip pointed to a market that has
grown faster than its underlying infrastructure can support, with new entrants
flooding in at a pace that raises serious questions about long-term viability.
“There’s about two to five prop firms opening up almost every week,”
he said. That pace of entry, he argued, has produced a landscape where most
firms look identical, compete on price, and lack the operational depth to
survive a sustained payout cycle.
The prop firm sector has faced growing scrutiny over
its business model sustainability, particularly following a string of
high-profile closures and enforcement actions in 2024. Philip’s comments
suggest the stress has not abated. He described a pattern where firms scale
quickly on challenge fee revenue, encounter a wave of funded traders, and then
find themselves unable to honor the commitments that follow.
The volume surge has been documented across the
industry. easyMarkets reported a 240% jump in gold trading during Q4 as
volatility returned to the market, a figure that helps illustrate the scale
of the trend Philip says most firms were not positioned to absorb.
Philip said Rhodium is trying to take a different route by
designing its rules around long-term trader behavior rather than optimizing for
failure rates, though traders should review the firm’s published ruleset
independently. “Our rules… push traders to be a bit more consistent and
long-term,” he said, describing the goal as a “more long-term
consistent successful partnership” compared to what he characterized as
industry norms.
Instant Funding Models Under Fire
Philip was particularly direct about instant funding
challenges, a product format that has gained popularity across the sector in
recent years. He described them as a mechanism built around exploiting trader
impatience rather than identifying genuine trading talent.
“These instant funding challenges… it’s just a quick
money-making scheme,” he said. “It literally works on people’s
greed… people want to get instant funded. All they think about is I’m going
to have the money right away, but they don’t realize that these rules are so
strict and so hard to actually get that first payout.”
Instant funding models became a major topic of debate within
the industry after several firms that heavily promoted the format ran
into payout difficulties. Philip argued that the format continues to attract
new operators precisely because the revenue is front-loaded and visible, while
the liabilities arrive later and quietly.
Philip said Rhodium has opted against instant funding, a
decision he claims has contributed to slower growth. He maintains that a
two-step evaluation model produces a more stable client base over time.
Regulation Is Coming, but Not Quickly
Philip spoke at some length about the regulatory horizon for
the prop trading sector, offering a more measured view than the alarm that has
characterized some industry commentary. He said regulators are watching, but
suggested they remain genuinely uncertain about how the business model works.
“I do think we have a bit more time, but a lot of these
owners are making a lot of red flags for these regulators,” he said,
pointing to rug pulls and opaque financial operations as the behaviors most
likely to accelerate a regulatory response.
He drew a comparison to how ESMA’s leverage cap on European
retail brokers played out, noting that the rule, while defensible on trader
protection grounds, pushed many clients toward offshore providers offering
higher leverage. The lesson he drew was that regulation without a coordinated
industry response often reshuffles clients rather than protecting them. The ESMA leverage rules have had lasting effects on the
European retail FX market, redirecting significant volumes to
less-regulated jurisdictions.
On the United States specifically, Philip said Rhodium has
made a deliberate decision to stay out of the market entirely. “If America
hunts you down as a financial institute, they really hunt you down,” he
said, referencing the compliance risk posed by the Dodd-Frank Act. He warned
that firms quietly accepting US clients while building out their operations are
creating a legal liability that will surface the moment they try to legitimize
or scale.
Background: From BlackBull to Dominion to Rhodium
Philip’s path to running a prop firm ran through the
brokerage side of the industry. He joined BlackBull Markets in 2018, worked
through account management and market analysis roles, and was later recruited
by the owner of Dominion Markets to build out the sales structure. He
eventually rose to COO, handling operations while the firm’s founder, known
publicly as Raja, remained the outward face of the business.
Dominion Markets built a substantial following in the
retail trading community, in part through its educational content and the
high-profile social media presence of its founder. Philip described the firm’s
pace as intense, reflecting the founder’s background as a short-timeframe
trader. He said the experience gave him both the operational knowledge to run a
financial company and a clearer view of what traders actually need versus what
most firms offer.
Philip said Rhodium FX, which is based in Dubai, aims to
position itself as a longer-term, more institutionally structured alternative
to the mainstream retail prop model. He added that the firm is exploring
connections to liquidity infrastructure that would allow it to benefit directly
from successful trader activity, rather than operating on a pure challenge-fee
model, though no formal arrangements have been publicly announced.
“You
have a lot of prop firms… not even allowing gold to be traded anymore,”
that is how Philip H. van den Berg, co-founder and CEO of Rhodium FX, described
what he says is a growing structural problem quietly spreading across the
retail prop trading industry.
Singapore Summit: Meet the largest APAC brokers you know (and those you still don’t!)
Speaking in
a Thentick podcast interview, he argued that the gold market’s record-breaking
run is doing something the industry never prepared for: making ordinary retail
traders consistently profitable, and the economics of many prop firms simply
cannot absorb it.
The
observation cuts to a core tension that has been building for months. As gold prices
pushed to successive all-time highs, retail traders who had long struggled to pass
evaluation challenges suddenly found themselves on the right side of a single,
powerful trend. For prop firms whose business model depends on a majority of
traders failing or churning out before reaching payout thresholds, that is a
significant problem.
Philip, who
spent several years as COO of Dominion Markets before founding Rhodium, said
the response from many firms has been blunt: simply removing gold from the list
of tradeable instruments. The same volatility that prompted some prop firms to
delist the metal also forced liquidity providers to act, with Scope
Prime widening spreads following CME margin rule changes.
“We’re
seeing owners make money real quick and they pull a rug on the whole on the
whole system,” he said.
2-5 New
Prop Firms Opening Every Week
The gold
issue does not exist in isolation. Philip pointed to a market that has
grown faster than its underlying infrastructure can support, with new entrants
flooding in at a pace that raises serious questions about long-term viability.
“There’s about two to five prop firms opening up almost every week,”
he said. That pace of entry, he argued, has produced a landscape where most
firms look identical, compete on price, and lack the operational depth to
survive a sustained payout cycle.
The prop firm sector has faced growing scrutiny over
its business model sustainability, particularly following a string of
high-profile closures and enforcement actions in 2024. Philip’s comments
suggest the stress has not abated. He described a pattern where firms scale
quickly on challenge fee revenue, encounter a wave of funded traders, and then
find themselves unable to honor the commitments that follow.
The volume surge has been documented across the
industry. easyMarkets reported a 240% jump in gold trading during Q4 as
volatility returned to the market, a figure that helps illustrate the scale
of the trend Philip says most firms were not positioned to absorb.
Philip said Rhodium is trying to take a different route by
designing its rules around long-term trader behavior rather than optimizing for
failure rates, though traders should review the firm’s published ruleset
independently. “Our rules… push traders to be a bit more consistent and
long-term,” he said, describing the goal as a “more long-term
consistent successful partnership” compared to what he characterized as
industry norms.
Instant Funding Models Under Fire
Philip was particularly direct about instant funding
challenges, a product format that has gained popularity across the sector in
recent years. He described them as a mechanism built around exploiting trader
impatience rather than identifying genuine trading talent.
“These instant funding challenges… it’s just a quick
money-making scheme,” he said. “It literally works on people’s
greed… people want to get instant funded. All they think about is I’m going
to have the money right away, but they don’t realize that these rules are so
strict and so hard to actually get that first payout.”
Instant funding models became a major topic of debate within
the industry after several firms that heavily promoted the format ran
into payout difficulties. Philip argued that the format continues to attract
new operators precisely because the revenue is front-loaded and visible, while
the liabilities arrive later and quietly.
Philip said Rhodium has opted against instant funding, a
decision he claims has contributed to slower growth. He maintains that a
two-step evaluation model produces a more stable client base over time.
Regulation Is Coming, but Not Quickly
Philip spoke at some length about the regulatory horizon for
the prop trading sector, offering a more measured view than the alarm that has
characterized some industry commentary. He said regulators are watching, but
suggested they remain genuinely uncertain about how the business model works.
“I do think we have a bit more time, but a lot of these
owners are making a lot of red flags for these regulators,” he said,
pointing to rug pulls and opaque financial operations as the behaviors most
likely to accelerate a regulatory response.
He drew a comparison to how ESMA’s leverage cap on European
retail brokers played out, noting that the rule, while defensible on trader
protection grounds, pushed many clients toward offshore providers offering
higher leverage. The lesson he drew was that regulation without a coordinated
industry response often reshuffles clients rather than protecting them. The ESMA leverage rules have had lasting effects on the
European retail FX market, redirecting significant volumes to
less-regulated jurisdictions.
On the United States specifically, Philip said Rhodium has
made a deliberate decision to stay out of the market entirely. “If America
hunts you down as a financial institute, they really hunt you down,” he
said, referencing the compliance risk posed by the Dodd-Frank Act. He warned
that firms quietly accepting US clients while building out their operations are
creating a legal liability that will surface the moment they try to legitimize
or scale.
Background: From BlackBull to Dominion to Rhodium
Philip’s path to running a prop firm ran through the
brokerage side of the industry. He joined BlackBull Markets in 2018, worked
through account management and market analysis roles, and was later recruited
by the owner of Dominion Markets to build out the sales structure. He
eventually rose to COO, handling operations while the firm’s founder, known
publicly as Raja, remained the outward face of the business.
Dominion Markets built a substantial following in the
retail trading community, in part through its educational content and the
high-profile social media presence of its founder. Philip described the firm’s
pace as intense, reflecting the founder’s background as a short-timeframe
trader. He said the experience gave him both the operational knowledge to run a
financial company and a clearer view of what traders actually need versus what
most firms offer.
Philip said Rhodium FX, which is based in Dubai, aims to
position itself as a longer-term, more institutionally structured alternative
to the mainstream retail prop model. He added that the firm is exploring
connections to liquidity infrastructure that would allow it to benefit directly
from successful trader activity, rather than operating on a pure challenge-fee
model, though no formal arrangements have been publicly announced.