Passing is a test. Keeping it is a job.
Most traders who pass a challenge lose the funded account within a few months. The failure mode is specific and predictable, and it is not the one people expect.
They do not fail because the market changed. They fail because their behaviour changed the moment the account became real.
Why the funded account is harder
The challenge had one goal: reach the target. The funded account has an open-ended one: keep producing without breaching.
Four things change:
The payout matters. A challenge loss costs a fee. A funded loss costs income you had started counting on. That difference is felt in every decision.
There is no finish line. The challenge ended. The funded account does not, which means the discipline must be sustainable indefinitely rather than for six weeks.
Size is larger. A 1% risk on $100,000 is $1,000. If that is a meaningful sum to you personally, you are now trading a size you have never traded psychologically, whatever the percentage says.
The drawdown rule persists. It did not disappear at the pass. On a trailing rule it may now be tighter than it was on day one.