Riley Botha
A 20-year-old Chicago trader who built the Motion Model for Nasdaq futures, teaches it free on YouTube and trades it live each weekday morning for his Motion Network members.
Compiled by MarketFramework editorial · Last reviewed Oct 24, 2026
▶ Featured video · Sep 17, 2026Editorial profile. Riley Botha is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by MarketFramework or MyFundedFutures, and this profile is not endorsed by Riley. MarketFramework is operated by MyFundedFutures, a futures prop firm. Compiled from public sources; performance figures are as stated by the creator and are not independently verified. Corrections & removal requests.
Riley Botha is a 20-year-old Nasdaq futures trader from Chicago and the founder of Motion Network, a trading community whose free Discord has more than 7,700 members. He trades NQ with his own Motion Model, built on SMT divergence and inversion fair value gaps, and teaches it on YouTube, in a weekday live room and through mentorship.
Trades
Nasdaq futures
NQ · ES on screen for SMT
Style
Motion Model
two-stage SMT · IFVG entries
Trading since
2023
started at 17 · full time at 19
Based
Chicago
United States
YouTube
14K
subscribers · Oct 2026
Discord
7.7K
members · Motion Network
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BEST KNOWN FOR
The Motion Model and Motion Network
Botha trades Nasdaq futures with the Motion Model, his own system of higher-timeframe rejections, two-stage SMT divergence between NQ and ES, and inversion fair value gap entries. In August 2026 he laid it out step by step in a free YouTube breakdown. Around it he has built Motion Network, a community with a free Discord of more than 7,700 members, a weekday live trading room, a bootcamp and paid mentorship.
IN RILEY'S WORDS
“It’s only an SMT if a sweep happens.”
YouTube, August 2026 (Motion Model full breakdown)
“What I trade is my narrative and my perspective on the market every single day.”
YouTube, September 2026
“I just figured, you know what, why don’t I just become that person and help people out?”
The Sharp Money Show, March 2026
Riley Botha's featured video
“ive never watched an ICT video in my life” · published Sep 17, 2026 · 6.0K views
Who is Riley Botha?
Riley Botha trades Nasdaq futures with a model he built and named himself, and at 20 he already has a community of thousands learning it. He founded Motion Network, whose free Discord has passed 7,700 members. Each weekday morning he trades the New York open live for his members. His YouTube channel has about 14,000 subscribers and more than 1,400 uploads, most of them Shorts.
He started at 17, in March 2023, after trading showed up on his social media feed. At the time he was still in high school and working 30 to 35 hours a week. He refereed soccer games after about ten years as a player, and he also worked at Dick’s Sporting Goods and sold memberships at a health club. TJR’s bootcamp videos taught him the basics: fair value gaps and liquidity. He traded from the closet of his bedroom at his mother’s house, and it took about a year, he says, before things started to click. His father came to the United States from South Africa and set out to build his own fitness business. Botha credits him with the habit of always trying to outwork everyone in the room.
The turning point came around his high school graduation in May 2024. He needed a better entry model and found one in PB Trading’s Discord, where he learned the inversion fair value gap. It became the core of his own strategy. He says he earned his first payout while he was part of that community. From that entry he built the Motion Model. The model reads a story from the higher timeframes and waits for price to reject a fair value gap or an opening gap. Then it wants a two-stage SMT divergence between NQ and ES before an entry on the 15-second to 1-minute chart. He describes the ingredients as half smart money concepts and half ICT, gathered from all over the internet. Yet he says he has never watched an ICT video himself. By 19 trading was his full-time work, and he moved out into a high-rise in downtown Chicago.
Motion Network grew up around the model, starting with a free Discord in February 2025. More than 1,400 people have joined the community on Whop, where it is rated 4.7 from 142 reviews. Its live trading room is a monthly membership built around the New York open from Monday to Friday. Members get a daily bias before the bell, trade recaps and a weekly overview. Motion Network also offers a Motion Model Bootcamp, a paid mentorship by application and a monthly “Live with Riley” webinar on Discord. He began trading live in front of members in January 2026. In October he flew two of his students out to Chicago to live with him for a week.
His YouTube output mixes strategy breakdowns and the MM Market Overview recaps with day-in-the-life vlogs and talks on mindset and faith. On The Sharp Money Show he named conviction as the thing traders should develop before they worry about keeping their emotions in check. He started teaching after asking himself how much faster he might have progressed with someone to teach him from day one. His TikTok bio, on an account with more than 30,000 followers, opens with “it’s all God.” At 20 he has a model of his own, a community in the thousands and a habit of trading live for his members every weekday morning. He is still building all three.
How Riley trades
The Motion Model, step by step
Botha builds each trade from the top down. First comes a higher-timeframe rejection: price trades into a fair value gap on the 15-minute, hourly, 4-hour or daily chart and wicks back out. Next he wants an external SMT, a divergence in which ES sweeps a high or low that NQ does not, or the reverse. That sets the direction and the daily bias. Just before entry he wants a second, internal SMT on the lower timeframe. By his rule, a divergence only counts when one index actually sweeps the level.
The target is a clear draw on liquidity, such as a higher-timeframe wick inside a gap, a session high or low, the true day open or the previous day’s levels. The trigger is an inversion fair value gap on the 15-second to 1-minute chart. He wants one that inverts within one to four candles, a detail he found through his own testing. The stop goes at the high or low of the SMT. He teaches students to aim for 1:2 risk-to-reward and move to break-even at 1:1, while on his own account he targets 1:3.
Narrative first, then the setup
He is clear that a checklist is only part of trading. “The full story is market structure,” he says. The steps only matter inside a narrative, read from the daily and 4-hour charts down to the 1-minute. He backtests on FX Replay and puts the statistics on screen. His tests find most setups in the London and New York sessions, and in practice he trades NQ in the New York morning, with ES on screen as the comparison index. In April 2026 he also posted a live session of the Motion Model traded during Asia hours.
His accounts are a mix. He trades prop-firm evaluations and funded accounts, and FundedNext is the firm he features most in his recent videos. He says he has also traded a personal live account since November 2025. His members’ room is built around the New York open every weekday. As with every trader profiled here, the approach is described from his own material and is not a recommendation; futures trading involves substantial risk of loss.
See how the wider prop-trading field is positioned in NQ while you study a method like this: MarketFramework's Positioning Edge shows live long/short splits across ES, NQ, MES and MNQ from real evaluation and funded accounts, and Prop Backtest scores strategies against prop-firm rules.
Riley Botha's career timeline
Starts learning to trade in March at 17, while still in high school and working 30 to 35 hours a week; picks up the basics from TJR’s bootcamp videos. source
Graduates from high school in May and, looking for a better entry model, learns the inversion fair value gap in PB Trading’s Discord. The Motion Model grows from there. source
Takes his first payout, he says, while trading from the closet of his bedroom at his mother’s house. source
Starts regular long-form YouTube uploads in April, pointing viewers to the Motion Network Discord he opened that February. source
Tells the story, in an October video, of how he made trading his full-time work at 19. source
Begins trading live in front of his community in January and tells his story on The Sharp Money Show in March. source
Lays out the Motion Model step by step in a free YouTube breakdown in August, the month he also starts the MM Market Overview recap series. source
Flies two of his students out to Chicago to live with him for a week and records a joint video with fellow educator Tizz Trades (October). source
Riley Botha's videos
LATEST
an 18x ROI on a funded account? (Best Propfirm account with FundedNext)
Figure as stated by creatorwatch this video before you go out this weekend
how i changed my entire life in 3 years.
arm day and making $20k in my chicago penthouse (day in the life)
Figure as stated by creatorhaving an ego will leave you with nothing
MOST POPULAR
how i turned trading into my full time j*b at 19
WHY YOU BLOW YOUR EVALS: my simple prop firm trading strategy
THE BLUEPRINT: what i would do to become profitable as a beginner in 3-6 months
ive never watched an ICT video in my life
STEAL my 70% winrate trading strategy (Motion Model FULL BREAKDOWN)
Figure as stated by creatorSHORTS
Prop firms Riley works with
His Motion Network deals page lists partner code BOTHA for nine futures prop firms as of October 2026. The three listed here are the ones with a dated video or Short in the past month.
We list a firm relationship only with dated public evidence from the last 30 days, re-checked each editorial pass.
RILEY BOTHA: FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Riley Botha trade?
Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ), intraday and mostly in the New York morning, with ES on screen for comparison. He trades his own Motion Model, which combines a higher-timeframe rejection, a two-stage SMT divergence between NQ and ES, and an inversion fair value gap entry on the 15-second to 1-minute chart. He aims for a fixed 1:2 to 1:3 risk-to-reward.
Who is Riley Botha?
A 20-year-old futures trader and entrepreneur from Chicago. He started learning to trade at 17, in March 2023, and made it his full-time work by 19. He also founded Motion Network, a trading community with a free Discord, a weekday live trading room and paid mentorship. He publishes on YouTube as @RileyBotha and on TikTok and Instagram as @riley_botha.
What is Motion Network?
Botha’s trading community, which starts with a free Discord of more than 7,700 members. The live trading room is a monthly membership on Whop with a five-day free trial. In it he trades the New York open from Monday to Friday and posts a daily bias, recaps and a weekly overview. Motion Network also offers the Motion Model Bootcamp, a paid mentorship by application and a monthly “Live with Riley” webinar. Its Whop page is rated 4.7 from 142 reviews.
What is Riley Botha’s net worth?
Riley Botha has not disclosed his net worth, and MarketFramework does not estimate net worth for the traders it profiles.
Which prop firm does Riley Botha use?
FundedNext is the firm he features most in his recent videos. He trades FundedNext accounts in trade recaps, including one published on 29 September 2026, and his descriptions carry the partner code BOTHA. Shorts from October 2026 also carry code BOTHA for Alpha Funded and Goat Funded Futures, and his Motion Network deals page lists the code for nine futures prop firms. He says he has also traded a personal live account since November 2025.
SOURCES
- Riley Botha: YouTube channelaccessed Oct 24, 2026
- Motion Network: prop firm deals and mentorshipaccessed Oct 24, 2026
- Motion Network on Whopaccessed Oct 24, 2026
- YouTube: Motion Model full breakdown (August 2026)accessed Oct 24, 2026
- YouTube: smart money concepts, ICT and market structure in the Motion Model (September 2026)accessed Oct 24, 2026
- The Sharp Money Show: interview with Riley Botha (March 2026)accessed Oct 24, 2026
- YouTube: FundedNext trade recap with code BOTHA (29 September 2026)accessed Oct 24, 2026
- TikTok: @riley_bothaaccessed Oct 24, 2026
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