Crypto was built on a simple refusal. Instead of trusting a bank’s ledger, you verify the chain yourself. Instead of trusting an auditor’s signature, you check the address on a block explorer. That principle shaped everything from Bitcoin’s genesis block to the proof-of-reserves movement that followed the exchange failures of 2022.

Yet one corner of the industry still runs almost entirely on trust: crypto prop trading. Proprietary trading firms offer skilled traders access to firm capital, usually after a paid evaluation, in exchange for a share of profits. The pitch is compelling. The problem is that most of these firms operate as closed systems. Traders cannot verify how payouts are funded, how…