Founder Samuel Katallah, the creative mind behind prop trading firm AuraXtail, and its advanced technology sector: Aura X, is quickly starting to become a topic around what’s possible for financial innovation. Beyond the headlines of the firm’s innovation lies a personal story worthy of the big screen. Katallah’s story through failure, betrayal, and gut wrenching obstacles, has ultimately turned him into a sacrificial lamb for setting the stage in the future of finance, and forex prop trading.
The Early Struggles of a Visionary
Samuel’s journey began far from the trading floor. As a talented hockey player, he spent his childhood and teenage years on the ice. However, by his mid-teens, Samuel had set his sights on something far more ambitious than becoming an NHL superstar. Dropping hockey and high school all together, he dove into the world of business with the naive boldness of youth. His first venture, a cell phone battery powered by renewable energy, showcased his ingenuity but ultimately failed due to a lack of funding. At just 16, investors were reluctant to back such a young and inexperienced entrepreneur.
Undeterred, Samuel explored more avenues. He even pursued a career in music and launched a booking company hosting shows for major artists. However, the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the live events industry, and Samuel once again found himself starting over. He then ventured into dropshipping, but issues with payment processors wiped out his finances yet again. Fast forward through many years of failed ventures and startups, the continued successive failures and personal struggles led Samuel to a crossroads.
Turning to Trading and Finding Faith
It was during this period of uncertainty that Samuel decided to dive deeper into his previous introduction to trading. He entered the world of CFDs, but his initial foray was marred by losses. Betting on failed traders and strategies cost him hundreds of thousands in loans. Despite the soul-crushing setbacks and peaking close to a million dollars in debts, Samuel found a new source of strength: he rediscovered his faith in God. This newfound perspective gave him the clarity and resilience to keep moving forward.
In an attempt to finally locate his goldmine trading strategy, Samuel started his first prop firm and connected with some of the top proprietary traders in the world. Recognizing their talent, he signed them, then started an investment company around them. This investment company was meant to raise capital from investors to utilize the winning trading strategies sourced from his prop firm. Together, Samuel and his traders dominated the game, with one of his strategies going on a one-year winning streak without a single loss. This never seen before winning streak brought a viral surge of attention from the forex community towards his best trader and biggest signing: German born trader “Bernd Skorupinski”. The success catapulted Samuel into financial prosperity and initiated his reputation in the industry as a prop firm owner and strategy provider for investors.
With all the hype of his biggest signing, Samuel managed to raise a whopping 17.3 million dollars from other institutions looking to white-label the impressive year-long winning streak.
Betrayal and Demise
His first prop firm founded to find good trading talent soon met an unexpected twist. Behind the scenes, it started with the betrayal of one of his biggest clients. Hedge Fund RoboGroup FZCO trading Vantage Markets derivatives, was one of Samuels largest margin providers for his CFD traders at his prop firm. Repeated unpaid invoices from them and other clients left Samuel and all his top traders in a major jam. Then it happened, the big collapse of RoboGroup FZCO, large unpaid debts from clients, and other investors that never fulfilled their deadlines on allocation contracts. This also caused some of Samuels’ close partners to pull from smaller margin accounts during trades they were obligated to hold. In a desperate bid to save his strategies, Samuel leveraged his cryptocurrency savings, only to be scammed out of his assets. This led to various devastating blows for his prop firm. As investors’ and margin providers defaulted on payments to his investment company, partners abandoned him, and assets were scammed from him, Samuel faced the impending doom of losing every trading strategy he had located and built for his loyal investors. The weight of the world became dark and affected his mental health in a petrifying reality. He has felt the full effects of being scammed, back stabbed, abandoned, and scrutinized all within weeks apart.
What frustrated Samuel the most was the realization that he had contracted some of the best CFD trading strategies in the world, yet the lack of regulatory oversight in the forex trading space, crucial mistakes with mismanaged margin, and opportunity to act unjustly had failed him. He finally understood what needed to be implemented to protect himself, but more importantly his traders that supply him with his winning investment strategies. It was this moment of clarity that planted the seed for what eventually became the big rebranded trading movement of AuraXtail.
The Birth of AruXtail
Fast forward past the heartbreaks with determination to address the gaps in the industry, Samuel prevailed and salvaged some of his remaining strategies and traders through a private model revamped at his first prop firm. He then continued through his journey, recovered liquidity through private investors and his few remaining trading strategies, then eventually gave birth to AuraXtail. A new beginning, a fresh star. At its core was a commitment to his traders and investors who wanted to use his traders’ strategies, with a structure designed to eliminate the inefficiencies and conflicts of interest that plagued the traditional proprietary trading model.
Revolutionizing the Industry
Despite all the plans to grow fintech innovations under Aura X, Samuel addressed the issue of regulations surrounding evaluation fees, PAMMs, providers, and margin accounts, which will protect his traders with an A-BOOK feed, by introducing an escrow to serve as the official paymaster and manager of all transactions within the firm. This ensures that no one has direct authorization over evaluation fee liquidity, margin account allocations, or leverage to mishandle margin. All transactions, refunds to traders, and payouts are managed exclusively by the appointed escrow under Canadian regulation, guaranteeing transparency and accountability.
AuraXtail will prove its claims of an A-BOOK feed and the use of evaluation fees for margin accounts by conducting regular audits under CPAB and CPA auditing firms. Audits and all financial material will be publicly available, ensuring a transparent environment for its traders. These enforcements will hold margin account providers accountable through the use of escrow and provide traders with an environment of always staying in the loop.
Samuel’s journey highlights the lack of professionalism within the forex community, a gap that will soon be addressed through the implementation of his new innovations. To further enforce strict guidelines, Samuel is attempting to lead his firm’s official registration with the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) or an equally credible regulatory body. Additionally, through Aura X, he has developed innovative protective software designed to prevent fraudulent or manipulative activity by traders and financial institutions within the CFD space, setting a highlight for integrity and security in the industry.
A Vision for the Future
Samuel’s journey from failure to redemption has shaped into a firm unlike any other. His personal experiences of betrayal, loss, mistakes, and resilience are all embedded in the company’s DNA.
As AuroXtail continues to gain recognition, it stands as a light of hope and innovation in the forex proprietary trading industry. With Samuel Katallah at the helm, the firm is showcasing how it looks to lead with purpose and resilience. Not being scared or ashamed to get up and try again, not caring what anyone thinks, and the in-humaine level of relentlessness, will ultimately be what takes Samuel Katallah and the prop firm to the end.
