What "simulated prop trading" actually means
A simulated prop firm — sometimes called a sim-funded firm — gives you a trading account that mirrors real market data and real pricing, but no real capital is ever deployed to markets on your behalf. Every position you open lives in a simulation layer. You are not trading a live brokerage account; there is no margin call that wipes someone's pension fund, and there is no regulatory custody requirement for your money.
WICK FUNDED operates on this model. Your account is a 100% simulated trading environment. No real funds are exposed to markets at any point — yours or the firm's.
This matters because it changes the risk structure for everyone involved:
- You cannot blow real money. The worst outcome is a failed evaluation — you lose the challenge fee, not a funded account balance.
- The firm is not running a hedge fund. It is not liable if markets gap overnight or if a trader holds a losing position into a news event.
The business model is straightforward: WICK earns revenue from challenge fees. When you pass, WICK pays out USDT rebates from its own treasury based on your simulated performance. You are not receiving a share of trading profits — you are receiving a promotional rebate tied to demonstrating skill in a simulated environment. Nothing here is financial advice, and WICK is not a brokerage.
Firms that are transparent about this structure tend to last. Firms that obscure it tend not to.
The evaluation-to-funded flow
WICK has three tracks. Each one tests a different trader profile.
| Track | Phases | Profit target(s) | Max drawdown | Daily drawdown | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Step | 1 | 10% | 6% | 4% | Strict, fastest path, lowest entry cost |
| 2-Step | 2 | 8% then 5% | 10% | 5% | Best value, more room to breathe |
| Instant Funded | 0 (skip eval) | First payout at +8% | — | — | Confident traders, no evaluation wait |
Account sizes run from $5K to $200K.
How drawdown is calculated varies by phase. During evaluation and the 2-Step challenge, the max drawdown trails from your high-water mark — if you push the account to $110K, the floor moves up with you. Once you are funded, the drawdown becomes fixed from the starting balance, so it does not tighten as your equity grows.
Daily drawdown resets each calendar day. Positions auto-close Friday; the market is closed on weekends, so there is no weekend risk to manage.
What happens when you pass
Once you clear the evaluation, you receive a funded simulated account. The profit split starts at 80% to you. Each time you receive a paid payout, the split ladders up by 5%, topping out at 95% after multiple cycles.
That structure rewards consistency over time. A trader who requests payouts regularly ends up at a significantly better split than one who runs the account for months before requesting anything.
How a payout actually happens
This is where the mechanical transparency matters most.
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You request a payout through your dashboard once you hit the $50 minimum and the first cycle window opens (14 days for 1-Step and 2-Step, 21 days for Instant Funded). After the first cycle, you can request on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly schedule.
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KYC is required only at first payout — not to purchase a challenge, not to start trading. You submit identity verification once, when you are actually going to receive money. This is anti-money-laundering compliance, not a gate to keep you from trading.
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WICK sends USDT TRC20 from its operator treasury. These are promotional rebates based on your simulated performance, paid in USDT on the TRON network. There is no wire transfer, no bank intermediary. The amount reflects your profit split percentage applied to the simulated gains recorded in your account.
The chain is: simulate performance → request payout → KYC once → receive USDT. No ambiguity about where the money comes from (treasury, not market profits) and no hidden steps.
The developer angle
WICK exposes a documented REST API and an MCP endpoint. Using a wk_live_ Bearer key, you can wire your own tooling — Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, a custom algo — directly to your own simulated account.
Available via API: open/close/modify trades, read live positions, pull journal history, fetch candle data. This is your account, your automation, within the simulated environment. The API does not give you access to anyone else's account or to any live brokerage infrastructure.
Is this for you
Simulated prop trading makes sense if you want to trade larger size than your own capital allows, and you are willing to demonstrate that you can manage risk within defined rules before access is extended.
It does not make sense if you expect the funded account to behave like a live brokerage account, or if you need the performance record to be auditable for a regulated entity.
The honest version: WICK is a structured challenge product with real USDT payouts tied to simulated performance. The evaluation rules are the product — they filter for traders who manage drawdown, not just traders who occasionally get lucky. The payout mechanism is real. The trading environment is simulated. Both of those things are true at the same time, and neither one cancels the other out.