Arena Blog
Data-driven insights on trading strategies, backtests, and market analysis.
1–12 of 22 posts · page 1 of 2
Pi Cycle called four Bitcoin tops. The all-time high wasn't one of them.
"3 for 3" sounds like a perfect Bitcoin indicator until you ask: three out of how many? Pi Cycle, where the count is known, hit four tops and stayed silent at four others, the highest among them.
In crypto, a strategy's first job is the exit. 200,000 backtests show why.
Across 405 crypto pairs, buy and hold loses money on 83 % of them. What 197,435 backtests say about what a strategy does first, what decides whether it earns, and why the bar for any altcoin is Bitcoin.
Five Questions for Any Trading Algorithm — Even the Good Providers Leave Out the Drawdown
The most detailed factsheet among three providers checked lists hit rate, best trade and worst trade — but not how far the portfolio fell or for how long. Five questions that make a return readable.
A Backtest Parameter You Never Set Moves Your Return by up to 12 Points a Year
A backtest has more parameters than the strategy description lists. The start day of a 3-day candle grid alone moves annual return by 6.66 points on average. What that means for every interval comparison, and the three questions that make the effect visible.
Your grid bot is not a hedge. It is half a portfolio in cash.
A grid bot had the flatter drawdown in 138 of 138 windows since 2017, ranges set in advance. Not because it trades well: because it never invests more than half the money. What that protection costs in rally windows, and what a hindsight range was worth.
What 100,000 Backtests Say Actually Works in Crypto — and 4 Questions That Expose a Lying Number
Four findings you can trade on — win rates, timeframes, regime filters, costs — and four questions that expose any performance claim. From 100,000 systematic backtests.
When a Backtest Result Is Just Noise: Four of Our Own Studies That Failed
When is a backtest result a false positive? Four of our own studies failed — against four rules we locked before looking. What each one caught.
The Wyckoff Spring, Backtested: We Locked the Rules First — Here's the Result
We pre-registered a Wyckoff spring backtest: rules locked first, 10 pairs, placebo control. The result is a clean nothing — and short-term even negative.
Stacking More Sats With Altcoin Rotation? 45 Tests, One Answer
Stacking more sats by rotating between altcoins, BTC and stablecoins sounds compelling. We measured it across 45 test cases. The result: less BTC than doing nothing.
The Wyckoff Method Explained — What the Research Says, and the Rules We Lock Before Testing
The Wyckoff schematic is among the best-known models in trading. Under its own name it is barely tested — the mechanism behind it is, and it contradicts the Spring at one decisive point. Here is how it works, why phases cannot be counted, and the exact rules plus control group for our test — published before a single number exists.
Why Honest Backtesting Looks Different
A backtest showing +900% is usually an illusion — built from one lucky entry, too few trades, and the wrong benchmark. Four principles we hold ourselves to: the average of all entries, the 30-trade line, Average Buy & Hold, and out-of-sample testing.
Backtest Tokenized Stocks: How Equities, ETFs and Gold Returned to the Arena
acktest tokenized stocks — without a market-data licence. Why the on-chain price opens the door, and where the limits are.
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