Topstep Live Payouts Bankroll a Trader's Apex Experiment
On Friday June 26, the X account @JoshuaTrades disclosed that capital from his Topstep live account funded a separate attempt at Apex, framing the decision as a calculated bet financed entirely from prior Topstep withdrawals.
The post, published on X at the URL x.com/JoshuaTrades/status/2070360456867254486, is a written disclosure rather than a payout certificate or bank screenshot. In it, the trader states plainly that the money used to purchase the Apex accounts came from payouts already received on his Topstep live account. That framing positions Topstep as the funding source in the narrative, with the $50,000 figure representing a target across 20 requests on the Apex side rather than a single Topstep receipt.
What the proof establishes is limited but specific. It confirms the trader treats Topstep withdrawals as recurring, spendable income, sufficient to bankroll a second-firm experiment. It does not disclose the Topstep account size, the instruments traded, the strategy, or the dollar amount of any individual Topstep payout. Readers should treat the $50,000 headline as a forward-looking objective on Apex, not a documented Topstep transfer.
“the money I spent is money from payouts from my topstep live account”— @JoshuaTrades on X, June 26
Context from the firm is useful here. Topstep was founded in Chicago in 2012 and is one of the longest-running futures prop firms, routing order flow to CME Group futures. The firm reports a 90/10 profit split, with accounts opened before January 2026 grandfathered to keep 100% of their first $10,000 in profits, a structure that helps explain how a consistent trader can accumulate withdrawals large enough to redeploy elsewhere.
The broader signal is behavioral. A trader publicly stating that Topstep withdrawals arrive reliably enough to be recycled into unrelated evaluations is a form of proof that differs from a screenshot, and in some ways is harder to fabricate over time. It is nonetheless a self-report on social media, and the absence of an attached certificate should be weighed accordingly.