Verdict. Vanta Trading pairs the most transparent rule set in one-step evaluation with the least binding contract behind it. The published rules are clean — 10% target, two 5% limits, no time limit, 100% of profits — but the terms of service you accept at checkout state that the site’s payout economics are “informational only and are not part of this Agreement”, and passing is “necessary but not sufficient” for the funded programme. Suits disciplined traders who can survive a 5% loss budget; not anyone relying on the marketing.

Key terms at a glance

• Evaluation fees: $9 (Kickstarter, $1,000), $49 ($5,000), $79 ($10,000), $169 ($25,000), $319 ($50,000), $599 ($100,000) — Vanta pricing page, checked 30 August 2026.
• Profit target: 10% of account balance, one step only.
• Max drawdown: two separate 5% limits — a static equity loss limit from the starting balance that never trails, and a daily limit from start-of-day equity; both count unrealised PnL.
• Profit split: 100%, Vanta taking 0%, plus a 25% quarterly bonus on realised PnL.
• Payout frequency: weekly seven-day cycles, USD via Stripe, no minimum. Processing described as “Currently manual”.
• Minimum trading days: none, and no time limit — but one trade within 60 days of activation.
• Scaling: quarterly, to $2.5m, requiring a 5% quarterly return and an all-time Sharpe ratio of 1.0 or above. Kickstarter accounts excluded.
• Entity: Taoshi VT Services, a Cayman Islands exempted company — terms of service, effective 10 February 2026.

What Vanta Trading is, and what its 10% target costs

Vanta Trading launched on 17 February 2026 from Taoshi, Inc., founded in 2023 by Arrash Yasavolian. Its distinguishing claim is infrastructural: evaluations run on Bittensor Subnet 8 — renamed from Proprietary Trading Network to Vanta Network — whose validator code is MIT-licensed on GitHub.

Everything is simulated. Vanta calls itself “a trading platform and technology facilitator, not a broker or prop firm”. Data comes from Hyperliquid, Databento and Massive, and one All Markets account covers 29 crypto pairs, 28 FX pairs, six commodities, 17 index products and more than 1,000 US equities.

The breadth matters, as does the absence of the rules that quietly end funded accounts elsewhere: no consistency rule, single-day profit cap, minimum-days rule, news restriction or algorithm ban. Set against Phidias, where the live-account step is discretionary, this is a model of clarity.

The 10% target sits on a 5% loss budget

One step gets expensive here: a 10% gain on a 5% loss budget means earning twice your permitted loss before you are paid anything — the tightest ratio among the firms Vanta chooses to compare against.

Metric	Vanta Trading	FTMO (2-step)	Breakout
Structure	One step	Two steps	Two steps
Profit target	10%	10% then 5%	5% then 10%
Max loss	5% static	10% static	8% static
Daily loss limit	5% of start-of-day equity	5% of initial capital	5% balance-based
Gain per unit of loss budget	2.0x	1.0x, then 0.5x	0.63x, then 1.25x
Minimum trading days	None	4	Not stated
Profit split	100%	80-90%	80-90%

FTMO’s figures come from its own trading objectives page; Breakout and the split figures from the comparison table Vanta publishes itself, so if they flatter anyone it is Vanta. Our FTMO review has more detail.

Both limits count unrealised PnL and apply “at any point in time”, so an open position’s intraday excursion can end an account that would have closed green.

What the terms of service do to the 100% split

The finding that matters is not on the rules page. That page says that once you pass, “your scaled account is activated immediately”. The terms of service, under the heading “Passing Does Not Guarantee an ICA Invitation”, state that “Passing the Challenge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being invited to Vanta’s Network Trader Program. Invitation is at Vanta’s sole discretion and requires you to execute a separate Independent Contractor Agreement.”

That agreement is where the money lives. The terms define the Network Trader Program as “governed entirely by a separate Independent Contractor Agreement and not by this Agreement”, under which selected individuals “may be eligible to receive performance-based compensation”. It is published nowhere on the site; a trader cannot read it before paying.

The agreement then disclaims the marketing outright: “Any descriptions of post-Challenge program economics (payouts, profit splits, scaling, bonuses) on Vanta’s website or marketing materials are informational only and are not part of this Agreement.” The 100% split, weekly payouts, $2.5m ladder and 25% bonus are all post-challenge economics — so by the contract’s own words, none is a term of it.

Two clauses go further. The terms default “Max Drawdown” to “the High-Water Mark, not from initial account value, unless the Challenge Rules expressly provide otherwise” — they do, but section 19 lets Vanta modify the agreement and the incorporated rules “at any time in its sole discretion”, effective “immediately upon posting”, against marketing that contrasts rules “Fixed in the protocol” with firms whose rules “Can change without notice”. Section 8 assigns all Network Emissions — the subnet’s alpha tokens — as “the sole and exclusive property of Vanta”, participants holding no claim “regardless of their designation, value, or any Participant’s contribution to generating them”. Traders keep 100% of simulated PnL; Vanta keeps the emissions their activity generates — the same gap found at Zenit Funding and Direct Funded Trader.

Payouts: what we could and could not verify

The mechanics are clear: distributions are calculated on realised profit, KYC is required only when a scaled account is activated, and crypto and PayPal payouts are listed as coming soon.

The central claim is that payouts are verifiable on a blockchain. The about page promises “Verifiable, blockchain-based rewards that cannot be denied”, and the rules call distributions “determined by the network and facilitated by Vanta — not subject to human discretion”. In a February statement, founder and chief executive Arrash Yasavolian said Vanta “offers a more transparent alternative to traditional prop firm models for scaling serious traders, with verifiable performance records and payouts tracking through the blockchain, zero take fees, and a simple, one-step evaluation process.”

We tested that on 30 August 2026 and could not verify a single payout. The Vanta Network dashboard rendered 174 characters of visible text — “Loading dashboard data…” — every figure loaded client-side. The homepage live metrics, funding distributed and traders processed, served --. The public taostats API returned a 401 without a key. Nothing on either site maps a named trader to a subnet identity, and no page exposes a per-trader payment record.

This is a limit on what the architecture can attest, not evidence of wrongdoing: a subnet records signals, scores and emissions, not a Stripe transfer. The rules confirm the settlement layer is human — payout “Processing: Currently manual; automatic processing coming soon” — and state distributions “may be withheld if a trader is found to have violated Vanta’s rules or policies”, while the terms define “Validated Results” as those “finally determined by Vanta after any review, adjustment, exclusion, or invalidation”. Rewards that cannot be denied can, on the firm’s own documents, be withheld. As at BluSky, the question is not whether the technology works but which layer it governs.

Vanta runs an affiliate programme — worth knowing when reading enthusiastic coverage elsewhere.

The rules that end accounts

Third-party copy trading brings “immediate disqualification”; mirroring your own strategy across your own accounts is allowed. No trade within 60 days of activation removes the account and forfeits the fee. Fees are refundable only before the challenge account opens; after that the terms record a waived statutory right of withdrawal.

Scaling carries a gate most retail traders will not have measured: the all-time Sharpe ratio above 1.0 covers the whole trading history, not the quarter, so one volatile stretch impairs eligibility indefinitely. The 25% bonus applies the same test at a 2% return threshold. A site advertising “no hidden rules” is still asking traders to clear a risk-adjusted bar they cannot easily compute. The terms add a limit absent from the rules page: only one challenge account per person per asset class may proceed to an ICA.

Scaled accounts also carry financing costs against realised PnL: forex swaps at 3% annualised every 24 hours, 3% annualised stock borrow on shorts, and 6.6% annualised interest on borrowed equity cash. A 100% split is a split of a number those charges have already reduced.

Regulatory posture

Taoshi VT Services is a Cayman Islands exempted company. It holds no financial services authorisation and claims none. With all activity simulated and no client money held, it sits outside the perimeter in most jurisdictions — the gap examined in our analysis of where prop firm regulation actually bites. Disputes go to binding individual arbitration with a class action waiver. The footer names a “Risk Disclosure” with no link; the URL 404s.

The February launch announcement described an 8% profit target and tiers at $199, $349 and $549, discounted to $149, $249 and $349. The live site now shows a 10% target and a $100,000 tier at $599: a harder target, and a flagship tier 71% above launch price.

FAQ

Is Vanta Trading legitimate? It is a real, operating platform with a published rule set, an open-source subnet, a named founder and a working checkout. The concern is enforceability: the payout terms advertised on the site are excluded from the contract you sign, and the agreement governing them is unpublished.

Do you really keep 100%? Of realised simulated PnL, after financing costs, on a scaled account, under an Independent Contractor Agreement you receive only if invited. Vanta takes no share of trading profit, but keeps all subnet token emissions that trading generates.

How hard is the evaluation? Harder than the marketing suggests. A 10% target on a 5% loss budget means earning twice your permitted loss, versus 1.0x in FTMO’s first phase. The offsets: no time limit, no minimum days, and a static drawdown that never trails.

Can I verify a payout on the blockchain? Not as a member of the public, on the evidence available in August 2026. The dashboards render no server-side figures, the taostats API requires a key, and no public record links a trader to a payment. The subnet attests scoring; the payment is a manual Stripe transfer.

This review is independent editorial analysis and is not financial, investment, or trading advice, and is not an endorsement or solicitation. The Industry Spread has no affiliate or referral relationship with the firms covered. Proprietary trading challenges carry a fee that is generally non-refundable, most participants do not reach a funded account, and funded capital is the firm’s capital, not the trader’s. Terms change frequently — always verify current rules directly with the firm before paying any fee.