The Funded Trader’s Founder Shut His Futures Prop…

Angelo Ciaramello, founder of The Funded Trader, has shut down his futures-focused prop firm Rev One Trading and says he is leaving the prop-business model to focus on prediction markets. Ciaramello announced the closure on Aug. 21 and said Rev One had been wound down during the previous week. He did not attribute the decision to a lack of traders or weak demand. Instead, he cited the economics of the platform technology, arguing that the firm had built a compelling product but lacked a top-tier platform option, which limited its ability to scale.

Rev One was Ciaramello's second prop operation after The Funded Trader and concentrated on futures. It ran paid evaluations in simulated accounts, with traders expected to hit profit targets while staying within drawdown limits to unlock payout eligibility. Rev One's website said trading was conducted in a simulated environment rather than through actual futures transactions on an exchange. Shortly before the closure, Rev One had been looking to widen its technology choices, saying on LinkedIn in July that it was adding DeepCharts, ATAS and Quantower through Volumetrica after traders requested more platform options.

That detail matters for interpreting the exit: Ciaramello's complaint was not that futures props lack customers, but that the absence of the right front-end and infrastructure kept acquisition and trader demand from becoming a scalable business. Technology vendors are betting on the opposite view. Trade Tech Solutions, which says its systems support more than 500,000 new prop accounts a month, now markets prediction-market infrastructure alongside products for forex, futures, crypto and sports. In June, it introduced Match-Trader Prediction Markets as an integrated product for prop firms, placing event-driven markets in the same environment used for execution, position monitoring and P&L tracking. Match-Trade describes the offering as white-label infrastructure for brokers, prop firms and institutions, and notes that it does not operate a prediction market or take wagers; customers using the software must obtain any authorizations their jurisdictions require. PropAccount.com also added prediction markets as a supported asset class in July.

The category has clear volume pull, though the often-cited $40 billion figure refers to the broader prediction-market industry rather than prop-firm trading specifically. KPMG estimated combined Kalshi and Polymarket volume at more than $40 billion in 2025, up from roughly $9 billion in 2024, and put Kalshi's fee revenue at $263.5 million on $22.9 billion in volume. Acuiti survey data cited by industry analysts showed 13% of proprietary trading firms already active in prediction markets and another 31% considering them.

Regulation remains a complication. A prediction market that offers swaps or futures contracts to the U.S. public must operate through a registered designated contract market, and event contracts on those venues sit within the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC oversight. Retail prop challenges can occupy a less settled perimeter because many use simulated accounts rather than accepting customer money for live market trading. Italy's Consob has separately warned consumers about funded-trading businesses built around paid challenges and simulated accounts. Prediction-market software sold to a prop firm does not automatically inherit the regulated status of a registered exchange; that depends on whether traders access real regulated contracts, simulated versions, and how the operator structures the product. Former Funded Trading Plus co-founder Michael Cogswell has said he would not have added prediction markets to his former prop brand because the potential regulatory cost could outweigh the commercial upside.

Ciaramello has not yet identified the prediction-market products he intends to build, said whether they will be consumer-facing or infrastructure, or given a launch schedule. The next test is whether other established prop founders follow him out of conventional funded FX and futures challenges. For now, Rev One's closure remains a single company decision; if more operators make the same calculation, it becomes a sector trend.