Being long and short at the same time means the market's direction cancels out. What is left is whether the winners keep beating the losers - which is a real question, not a bet on the market going up.
Here is what that came from.
After 378 failures, one strategy finally passed the test that killed all the others.
Rank 45 perpetuals by 5-day return. Long the top 5, short the bottom 5, hold 15 days, rebalance. Equal weight, dollar-neutral.
The out-of-sample control is the one that had destroyed everything before it: fix the settings on old data, then run them on data the search never touched. In-sample +1.711% per rebalance, out-of-sample +1.801%. The mean held.
It also survives costs far worse than real: still +0.48% per rebalance even at a 1.50% round trip, six times what Binance actually charges.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
IOST is up +34.72% - I tested both ways to trade it
TODAY'S TOP GAINERS IOST: +34.72% COMP: +22.25% REZ: +17.95% GNS: +17.31% BMT: +15.99% Every account on this app will show you this list. Here is the part they skip. I backtested both ways of trading a move like IOST's +34.72%: buying the breakout, and fading it on the assumption it reverts. Both lost money. Not narrowly - they lost roughly the transaction cost, 0.240% per round trip, which is what a signal carrying no information looks like once you charge it fees. A large 24-hour move tells you something already happened. It does not tell you what happens next, and the data says so in both directions. Part of a public experiment: every strategy I test gets published, working or not. Movers above: $IOST $COMP $REZ #Binance #Altcoins #Futures #IOST #CryptoData
The headline number was +134.12 USDT from short breakouts. Then I split it by year.
2022 - the year of the LUNA collapse and the FTX failure - produced 88.54 of it. Strip that year out and four years of trading returned 45.59 USDT, most of it from 2025.
This is tail capture, not income. Realistically it does nothing in calm markets and pays during sharp selloffs. Expecting it to earn every month is how people quit a strategy right before it works.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
Funding rate 'passive income' pays 0.0024% per 8 hours. The price noise is 1000x bigger.
Funding rate 'passive income' pays 0.0024% per 8 hours. The price noise is 1000x bigger. Collecting funding on perpetuals is sold as passive yield. I pulled 34,431 funding events across 7 symbols and measured it. Average funding is 0.0024% per 8-hour period. On a 150 USDT position that is 0.0036 USDT. A round trip costs 0.36 USDT - you would hold for 33 days just to cover entry and exit. Meanwhile the price moves 2.36% in a typical 8 hours. WHAT IT MEANS The income is real but tiny, and the price risk you take to earn it is roughly a thousand times larger. This is why desks that trade it hedge with spot. Unhedged, it is not income - it is a directional bet with a rebate. Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad. Run on $BTC $ETH $SOL #Binance #Futures #Backtesting #TradingBot #CryptoData
IOST is up +28.67% - I tested both ways to trade it
TODAY'S TOP GAINERS IOST: +28.67% COMP: +24.09% GNS: +19.23% BMT: +14.21% REZ: +14.15% Every account on this app will show you this list. Here is the part they skip. I backtested both ways of trading a move like IOST's +28.67%: buying the breakout, and fading it on the assumption it reverts. Both lost money. Not narrowly - they lost roughly the transaction cost, 0.240% per round trip, which is what a signal carrying no information looks like once you charge it fees. A large 24-hour move tells you something already happened. It does not tell you what happens next, and the data says so in both directions. Part of a public experiment: every strategy I test gets published, working or not. Movers above: $IOST $COMP $GNS #Binance #Altcoins #Futures #IOST #CryptoData
Runners stopped while I rebuild the strategy from the backtest evidence. Nothing open.
Running on a Binance testnet account, so this is demo capital - I would rather say that than let you assume otherwise. The strategy, the costs and the losses are all real.
No signals for sale, no course, no affiliate link. Just the account and the data behind it.
Donchian 20 channel, ATR stop, 10 symbols, four and a half years.
If this were just riding a bull market, the longs would be the winners. They are not - they are negative.
The shorts even made money on coins that ROSE over the period. BTC gained 94% buy-and-hold, and shorting its breakdowns still returned +22.83 USDT. XRP gained 87%, shorts returned +24.27 USDT.
THE NUMBERS Short trades: +134.12 USDT Long trades: -17.83 USDT Total trades: 3,209 Profitable short symbols: 8 of 10
Crypto falls faster than it rises - liquidation cascades are asymmetric. That is documented market structure, which is why this result is more believable than one that only works when everything goes up.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
IOST is up +27.15% - I tested both ways to trade it
TODAY'S TOP GAINERS IOST: +27.15% COMP: +20.33% BMT: +17.85% GNS: +15.09% WLD: +14.55% Every account on this app will show you this list. Here is the part they skip. I backtested both ways of trading a move like IOST's +27.15%: buying the breakout, and fading it on the assumption it reverts. Both lost money. Not narrowly - they lost roughly the transaction cost, 0.240% per round trip, which is what a signal carrying no information looks like once you charge it fees. A large 24-hour move tells you something already happened. It does not tell you what happens next, and the data says so in both directions. Part of a public experiment: every strategy I test gets published, working or not. Movers above: $IOST $COMP $BMT #Binance #Altcoins #Futures #IOST #CryptoData
Momentum made +5% per trade in 2024. In 2026 the exact same rule loses money.
Same universe, same ranking rule, same holding period, five different years.
2024 and 2025 carried the whole strategy. 2026 is the worst year of the five - a 25% win rate over roughly nine months.
Buying the strongest coins and shorting the weakest has stopped working this year. Doing the opposite would have returned +1.47% per rebalance at a 69% win rate.
WHAT IT MEANS A strategy is not a fact about markets, it is a fact about a period. Anyone showing you a backtest without the year-by-year breakdown is hiding the years that did not work.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
Searching hard enough through random data will always produce a winner. The out-of-sample test is the only thing that tells you whether you found an edge or just found noise wearing a costume.
Here is what that came from.
My 'validated' strategy made +1.74 USDT in backtest, then lost 208.72 USDT on data it had never seen.
I swept 40 symbols and found three that looked profitable. I called them validated and put them live.
Then I tested the exact same settings on 751 days of price history the search had never touched. All three reversed. Not marginally - completely.
Three survivors out of 40 is roughly what pure chance produces at that sample size.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
Runners stopped while I rebuild the strategy from the backtest evidence. Nothing open.
Running on a Binance testnet account, so this is demo capital - I would rather say that than let you assume otherwise. The strategy, the costs and the losses are all real.
No signals for sale, no course, no affiliate link. Just the account and the data behind it.
Runners stopped while I rebuild the strategy from the backtest evidence. Nothing open.
Running on a Binance testnet account, so this is demo capital - I would rather say that than let you assume otherwise. The strategy, the costs and the losses are all real.
No signals for sale, no course, no affiliate link. Just the account and the data behind it.
I tested 378 moving-average strategies. Every one lost exactly what it cost to trade.
I tested 378 moving-average strategies. Every one lost exactly what it cost to trade. Two signal families, four timeframes, EMA and SMA, with and without a trend filter, long-only and short-only. 378 combinations in total, all with real fees and real measured slippage applied. The round-trip cost of a trade is 0.240% of position size. The average result per trade, across every single configuration, landed between -0.361% and -0.401%. That is the cost, and nothing else. WHAT IT MEANS If a signal carried any directional information at all, the results would vary between configurations. Some would beat the cost line. None did. That is not weak edge that needs tuning - it is zero edge being charged an entry fee. Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad. Run on $BNB #Binance #Futures #Backtesting #TradingBot #CryptoData
Runners stopped while I rebuild the strategy from the backtest evidence. Nothing open.
Running on a Binance testnet account, so this is demo capital - I would rather say that than let you assume otherwise. The strategy, the costs and the losses are all real.
No signals for sale, no course, no affiliate link. Just the account and the data behind it.
Any strategy must clear 0.240% of position size per trade just to break even. Most published setups never mention this number, which is why most published setups lose money.
Here is what that came from.
I measured real execution costs with 48 controlled trades. One number decides everything.
I stopped assuming what trading costs and measured it: 48 controlled round trips, entering and exiting immediately, recording the actual fill against the reference price.
Fee was constant at 0.04% per side. Slippage was not - ETH filled at essentially zero, while DOGE cost 50 to 100 basis points per round trip.
On a 150 USDT position, a round trip costs 0.36 USDT before the market moves at all.
Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad.
GNS is up +35.37% - I tested both ways to trade it
TODAY'S TOP GAINERS GNS: +35.37% BMT: +26.05% ALT: +23.77% PHA: +15.05% REZ: +13.42% Every account on this app will show you this list. Here is the part they skip. I backtested both ways of trading a move like GNS's +35.37%: buying the breakout, and fading it on the assumption it reverts. Both lost money. Not narrowly - they lost roughly the transaction cost, 0.240% per round trip, which is what a signal carrying no information looks like once you charge it fees. A large 24-hour move tells you something already happened. It does not tell you what happens next, and the data says so in both directions. Part of a public experiment: every strategy I test gets published, working or not. Movers above: $GNS $BMT $ALT #Binance #Altcoins #Futures #GNS #CryptoData
My stop-loss order got rejected mid-crash. The bot then opened 3 more positions in 6 secon
My stop-loss order got rejected mid-crash. The bot then opened 3 more positions in 6 seconds. During a fast drop, Binance rejected my stop-loss with error -2021: the market had already moved past the trigger price before the order landed. My code did not handle that rejection. The position stayed open with no stop, and because the bot's own state never recorded it, the next signal opened another position on top. Three times. Intended risk was 3 USDT. Actual loss was 11.75 USDT. WHAT IT MEANS A backtest assumes your stop-loss always exists. Live, it is an order that can be refused. The gap between those two assumptions is where real money goes. Part of a public experiment: 5,063 USDT to 1,000,000 USDT, every result published - including the ones that make me look bad. Run on $BNB #Binance #Futures #Backtesting #TradingBot #CryptoData