Over $5 million paid out to funded traders, more than 1,700 accounts activated, and now a formal industry award to go with it. HyroTrader, a Prague-based crypto proprietary trading firm, took home the Best Prop Trading Firm title at the CoinGape Web3 Innovation Awards 2026, with the decision made by an independent panel that included representatives from Polygon Labs, Visa, Beldex, Shirplink, and Liminal Custody.
What set HyroTrader apart from the competition
The judges focused on three things: direct exchange execution, risk management structure, and a verifiable payout record. HyroTrader routes all trading activity to real exchange environments via a secure API connection to Bybit, a model the firm introduced back in 2023. That matters because most prop firms run on internal pricing engines, which means traders never touch a real order book. HyroTrader's traders do.
Funded accounts go up to $200,000, covering USDT perpetual contracts across more than 700 cryptocurrencies. Profit splits reach 90%, with withdrawals settled in USDT or USDC. The firm has been running since 2022 and now counts a community of over 35,000 members.
"Real exchange execution, clear rules, and payouts traders can verify," said CEO Samuel Drnda, describing the standard the firm set from its founding. "Recognition from a panel of this caliber confirms that transparency is not a marketing angle."
Hyro Protocol takes the model on-chain
The award landed at a pointed moment. On July 8, HyroTrader announced Hyro Protocol, an on-chain prop trading protocol built on Solana that settles in USDC. The architecture centers on a vault model: capital pools governed by smart-contract rules, with all key events, vault creation, deposits, NAV updates, and payouts, recorded on-chain and publicly verifiable.
Traders can enter through Challenge Vaults to prove their edge, or, if they already have an established track record, apply to manage liquidity provider capital directly through Direct Vaults. The other side of the equation is equally deliberate: liquidity providers get structured exposure to verified trading strategies rather than a black box.
Drnda put it plainly: closed systems where rules shift mid-evaluation and payouts happen behind closed doors are the norm in prop trading today. Hyro Protocol is built to replace that trust requirement with on-chain verification, giving traders ownership of their track records and giving LPs a transparent window into performance.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before making any financial decisions.
