For those of you in the Retail FX and CFDs sector who want to get a better understanding of the prop trading mania which has swept up many of the young generation of online traders – becoming an increasing source of introduced business to the CFD brokers – here is a great example. (Also, an example of perhaps why MetaQuotes has decided to distance itself from prop firm initiated business!)

Early yesterday Sean Bainton, CEO of retail prop trading firm Blue Guardian, tweeted out an offer to provide a free $100K “Challenge”, every month for the rest of the year, to anyone who gets the Blue Guardian logo tattooed (anywhere) on their body.

The offer went out after Bainton saw that a client of rival prop firm Alpha Capital Group posted a picture of a new tattoo he got (without compensation, presumably) of Alpha Capital’s logo on his arm, stating “@AlphaCapitalUK is here for the long term. I am with them. You change my life, I want to show gratitude. Big up, Alpha”.

Bainton tweeted out:

I love this I’ll give ANYONE who gets the Blue Guardian logo tattoo’d anywhere on their body a 100k challenge every month for the rest of the year. You have to submit a recording and pictures to prove its a real tattoo. How does that sound?

… but later warning…

So many people said they are going to do this I am going to limit it to the first 20 people to send it to me. So be quick!… F*ck it, I’m going to get one as well I owe it to this company, it changed my life.

Apparently the offer became very popular among Blue Guardian’s client base (and possibly outside it as well), with Bainton tweeting later on Monday:

Ok this has ended now. So many submissions in my DMs will go through them all properly and organise the accounts. If you have gotten it done make sure to sent to my dm. You lot are all crazy.

Late Monday Bainton posted some pictures of the offer winners (see above). No word as to whether or not Bainton himself got a Blue Guardian logo tattoo.

Prop firms like Blue Guardian earn their money (among other ways) by selling trading “Challenges” to retail traders, with a $100K Challenge typically costing between $200 and $500. The Challenge is a demo environment which allows a trader to prove himself or herself, and if a certain level of profitability is hit then the trader can trade “real money” in a funded account, receiving a percentage of the profit from trading.