Upcomers' Automation Gambit: A New Era for Traders or a Reality Check?

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – June 24, 2026 – Proprietary trading evaluation firm Upcomers announced this week it has enabled full support for automated trading tools, including Expert Advisors (EAs), across all five of its supported platforms. The move, effective since late May, allows the firm’s 65,000+ global participants to deploy algorithms in their quest to prove their trading prowess. "Automation has become the norm across modern markets, not the exception," stated CEO Jakub Zeliska, citing that 60-80% of U.S. equity volume is now algorithmic. "Forcing traders to operate like it is 2015 doesn't reflect how serious traders actually work today." The decision positions Upcomers to cater to a growing class of algorithmic traders, but it also casts a brighter light on the carefully constructed, and often misunderstood, world of simulated prop trading.

Keeping Pace in an Automated Arms Race

Upcomers’ announcement is less a revolution and more a strategic necessity in the hyper-competitive prop firm industry. The reality is that automation is not just the future; it's the present. Research confirms Zeliska's figures, with algorithmic strategies accounting for up to 70% of U.S. stock trades and an even more dominant 70-90% of global Forex volume. This shift from human intuition to machine execution is no longer confined to Wall Street’s gleaming towers. Retail algorithmic trading is a multi-billion dollar market in its own right, expanding at over 10% annually.

In this environment, prop firms that restrict automation risk being seen as archaic. Many of Upcomers’ established competitors, including industry heavyweights like FTMO and The Funded Trader, have long permitted the use of EAs. By extending this capability across its entire suite of platforms—MetaTrader 5, cTrader, TradeLocker, Match-Trader, and Bybit—Upcomers is not just catching up but aiming for comprehensive feature parity. This move is a direct response to a clear market demand. "Traders looking to test and scale their systems actively seek out firms that are EA-friendly," one industry analyst noted. For a firm that has grown rapidly since its 2024 launch, distributing a reported $6 million in payouts, embracing automation is a critical step to retain and attract talent in a crowded field.

Empowering the Individual or Just a Better Sandbox?

For the individual trader, the tangible impact seems clear. The policy opens the door for participants to deploy sophisticated, data-driven strategies that can operate around the clock, free from the emotional biases that plague manual trading. It allows quants and systematic traders to test their custom-built algorithms in a sandboxed environment without risking their own capital—a core value proposition of the prop firm model. The ability to use third-party bots and trade managers further lowers the barrier to entry for those who are not expert coders but wish to leverage automated tools.

However, this newfound freedom comes with significant guardrails. Automated strategies are subject to the exact same rules as manual ones, and Upcomers, like its peers, explicitly prohibits certain practices. Its "prohibited strategies" guide restricts high-frequency trading and various forms of arbitrage that could exploit the specific characteristics of a simulated environment. These rules are not arbitrary; they are designed to ensure that a trader's "edge" is a genuine market strategy, not a technical loophole in the demo server. This is a crucial distinction. The goal for the firm is to identify traders who can generate consistent profits under conditions that mimic the live market, not those who can game a simulation. Community sentiment reflects this dual reality. While some traders praise Upcomers for fair rules and consistent payouts, others have voiced concerns online about abrupt account suspensions for rule violations, highlighting the strict enforcement that underpins these programs.

The Simulated Reality and Regulatory Gray Zones

Perhaps the most critical aspect of this development lies in what Upcomers’ press release calls its "simulated environment." The company is explicit: it is not a broker, it does not accept investment deposits, and participants do not trade with real funds. The fees paid are for access to an evaluation service. This model has allowed the prop trading industry to flourish in a regulatory gray area, often outside the stringent oversight applied to traditional financial institutions. Upcomers’ corporate structure—with operational entities in a UAE free zone, a legal registration in Saint Lucia, and payment processing in Cyprus—is a common strategy for global online businesses navigating complex international regulations.

While this structure is efficient, it underscores the central question for any trader using automated strategies: how well does performance in a simulated world translate to reality? The firm's simulated liquidity and execution models, while sophisticated, cannot perfectly replicate the slippage, latency, and unpredictable dynamics of a live market, especially for high-speed algorithms. The prohibition of certain arbitrage strategies is a direct acknowledgment of this gap. Therefore, passing an evaluation with an EA proves a trader can be profitable within the firm's specific ecosystem and rules. It is a powerful validation, but not a one-to-one guarantee of live market success. Upcomers' embrace of automation is a powerful tool for modern trader education and evaluation, but it also reinforces that participants are operating in a meticulously crafted reality, designed to find a specific type of disciplined trader.