7.4 million active retail accounts in Q1. New record. Affiliate teams are still three people in a Slack channel.
THIS WEEK
OANDA shut its prop trading desk on April 30 and migrated traders to FTMO. Every affiliate that spent two years building a book on OANDA Prop is now starting from zero on someone else's contract terms. The LTV they were promised in 2023 walked into a different CRM.
Retail FX/CFD active accounts hit 7.4 million in Q1 2026. Affiliate budgets track active accounts. Affiliate manager headcount doesn't. Top 50 partners get the calls. The next 500 get a quarterly newsletter and a forgotten Telegram group.
CySEC issued Circular C770 last month, and ESMA's CSA inspections are running across Cyprus right now. The focus: conflicts between firm revenue and client interests. If you run a CPA-only program with no quality gate, you're already on a list. MGA got there first. CySEC just caught up.
WHAT I'M SEEING
Nobody on LinkedIn says this out loud. A third to half of the LTV an affiliate is "earning" never lands in the bank. Brand pivots. Program restructures. Firm winds down. Regulator changes terms.
The Funded Trader paused last year. FundingTicks wound down in January. OANDA Prop Trader is now FTMO.
The affiliates of all three found out from a tweet, not from their account manager.
A contract is only as good as the entity behind it.
THE CALL
Three more prop firms wind down or get bought before October. The affiliates running 100% prop firm books need a second leg. The ones who already moved are quiet about it. Usually iGaming or a Tier-1 CFD with a real license.
More money is moving through this channel than ever. Less of it lands where the contract said it would.
If your top 20 partners haven't heard from you this week, are they still your top 20?