Apex Arena 2.0: How to Enter the Free Futures Trading Competition and Win an Apex Account

Five days, a $25,000 cash pool, 200 evaluation accounts and no entry fee. Everything to know before the open on Monday, October 5.

FuturesPropTrading.com Editorial Team · Updated October 4, 2026 · 12 min read

A free trading competition sounds like a lottery ticket, and most traders treat it like one. Apex Arena 2.0 is built to punish that habit. It opens on Monday, October 5 at 11:00 AM CT (12:00 PM ET) on WealthCharts, and WealthCharts' own countdown post makes the premise plain: the leaderboard starts empty and everyone starts at zero. Competition days run October 5 to 9 on a single leaderboard, and the organizers say prizes go to disciplined and consistent traders as well as to standout single trades.

The entry cost is a free registration to the Wealth365 Summit, which keeps the downside of this futures trading competition to your time. The upside includes cash, Apex evaluation accounts and, for ten traders, a $100K Apex Performance Account. If you already follow futures prop firms, this is also a low-risk way to experience how Apex Trader Funding runs its accounts before you spend a dollar. The headline posts skip three things that matter before you register: a possible WealthCharts account step, age and country limits, and a claim deadline for winners. All three are covered below, along with how to approach the week.

Apex Arena 2.0 at a glance

Registering means agreeing to receive emails from Wealth365, WealthCharts and the Summit's sponsors, which the posted rules say includes Apex. A mobile number is optional and adds a text reminder 15 minutes before the Summit starts.

What time does it start where you are?

Apex quotes the start in US time zones, which leaves a lot of the world doing arithmetic on the night before. These conversions apply to the Monday, October 5 kickoff at 16:00 UTC.

Daylight saving time ends on different dates in the US and Europe, so recheck the conversion if you are reading this later in the month.

The prize pool, broken down

The headline number is the cash, but the real value for a futures trader sits in the accounts. This is what Apex put on the table in its announcement.

Why the $100K PA accounts are the real prize

A PA, or Performance Account, is the funded stage at Apex, the account you normally reach only after passing an evaluation. Winning one means skipping the evaluation step. It does not mean skipping the rules, and it does not mean live money. Apex accounts are simulated, the posted competition rules describe account prizes as simulated products with no guarantee of funding or payouts, and each prize is issued and governed by Apex under its own terms. Our full Apex Trader Funding review walks through the drawdown and payout conditions. Apex says the ten PA accounts are hidden among surprise pop-up awards and has not explained how those are triggered.

Why daily prizes change how you should play

Wealth365 describes the Arena as one leaderboard across the week, but not as a winner-take-all sprint. Prizes are awarded every day and across categories, so disciplined traders, consistent traders and standout single trades all get a moment. Forty evaluation accounts a day means a bad Monday does not end your week, provided you still have an account worth trading on Tuesday.

The structure rewards the trader who is still in the game on Friday, not the one who led on Monday.

How to enter Apex Arena 2.0

Entry is a short sequence, and the order matters because the first session counts as much as the last.

1. Register for the Wealth365 Summit. It is free and it is the official way into the Arena. Use the Summit registration page, and note the email consent described under the registration button above.
2. Check whether you need a WealthCharts account. Apex's announcement does not mention this step, but the posted rules do. Active WealthCharts Prop account holders register from inside the platform through the competition icon. Everyone else registers for a free WealthCharts access account and confirms participation as the organizers direct, so watch your inbox after you sign up.
3. Read the official competition rules. They sit on Wealth365's Terms and Conditions page, under the Trading Competition Official Rules. The posted version still carries July dates, which the next section explains.
4. Get comfortable on WealthCharts. If it is not your daily platform, spend the weekend learning the order ticket and your hotkeys. Execution mistakes cost more in a competition than anywhere else.
5. Be ready before the open. Logged in, plan written, instruments chosen, with time for the free kickoff session if you want it.

Who can enter, and what the rules say

The announcement posts are short on fine print, so this part, which covers the Apex Trader Funding competition as a whole, comes from Wealth365's published Official Rules and from the graphic in WealthCharts' countdown post, which tells entrants they must be 18 or over and in an eligible country.

Apex's Help Center publishes its own restricted-countries list, which is separate from the competition rules, so check it before you plan to activate a prize account. Several points are still unconfirmed:

• Whether the posted rules carry over unchanged to the October event.
• The October scoring criteria and how many prizes each category carries.
• How the 40 daily evaluation accounts are chosen.
• Which trading platform the prize accounts are issued on once Apex activates them.

The clauses that end entries early are about connections, copying and duplicate accounts, so the rules reward the trader who reads them before the first trade.

The two live sessions worth planning around

Rob Hoffman, a 37-time domestic and international real-money trading champion, hosts both main Arena sessions on the Summit schedule. Wealth365 lists all session times in Eastern Time.

How to approach a five-day trading competition

Most traders lose competitions the same way. They treat the leaderboard as a lottery ticket, size up after a slow start and are out of contention by Wednesday. Five habits separate the traders who last the week from the ones who do not.

A competition is a stress test of your process, and the prizes go to the process that holds up.

Won a prize? Here is what comes next

Move fast. Under the posted rules, winners must claim by email to support@wealth365.com before 11:59 PM Central Time on the final day of the Summit, which would be October 10 on this year's schedule if the same terms carry over, and late claims are forfeited. Winners may also have to open an account directly with Apex, accept its terms and meet CME market data requirements before an evaluation or PA account is activated. No source says which platform those prize accounts run on, so ask Apex before you assume it will be WealthCharts.

A free Apex evaluation from the Arena is still a real challenge with real rules: a profit target, a drawdown limit and payout conditions. Apex rebuilt its evaluation model with Apex 4.0 earlier this year, so older guides and forum posts may describe rules that no longer apply. Read the current rulebook on the official site before your first trade, or start with our Apex Trader Funding review for the plain-language version. Treat a free account with the same seriousness as one you paid for.

If you want to see how Apex stacks up against the rest of the market before you commit to one firm, our independent futures prop firm comparison sets platforms, payouts and rules side by side.

You do not need to win the Arena to get funded

Apex Arena 2.0 is a strong opportunity, but it is one week and a few hundred prizes for a very large audience. If you are serious about trading a funded futures account, you can start an Apex evaluation on your own schedule, with no leaderboard and no luck involved. Before you pay full price, look at the current Apex discount on evaluation fees.

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Apex Arena 2.0: frequently asked questions