Arena Blog

The Bitcoin liquidity fair value chart shows R²=0.85 — and claims BTC is "348% above fair value". We ran the cointegration test. It fails.

A backtest claiming a 100% win rate and 34 million percent returns is circulating. We're rebuilding it — and setting the rules before we compute.

ORB is sold as the holy grail of intraday trading. What the strategy really is, why the viral result misleads, and what makes or breaks an honest ORB backtest.

Our backtest engine used to compute returns before costs. We built a net-of-cost layer that re-prices every fill at a realistic fee — and it flipped our second-most-popular strategy negative after fees. Here is the math, the numbers, and why "beats buy-and-hold" is half a truth until you pay the fees.

Our Bollinger Squeeze strategy lost to Buy & Hold by double digits on crypto. Before deleting it, we rebuilt it to the modern standard (TTM Squeeze). The rebuild turned positive — and we retired it anyway. Why "it works now" isn't enough.

Auditing 40,000 backtests, our Fibonacci strategy came up short. Before cutting it we asked: is it our config? A better exit made it 20 points better — and we retired it anyway. Why "beats Buy & Hold" isn't the bar.

A smart-money indicator paints clean zones that price seems to respect. Backtest it honestly and the magic fades. The reason is mechanical — repainting and vanished losers — not your skill.

We ran the same RSI/SMA crossover across the top 50 coins and the top 50 US stocks — identical rules, identical window. On crypto it beats the buy-and-hold benchmark 80 % of the time; on stocks, 4 %. Why a trend-following strategy works in one market and bleeds in the other.

Dual Momentum supposedly beats Buy & Hold on return AND drawdown. Our GTAA-5 backtest (2007–2026) says otherwise: not on return — but clearly on drawdown.

The 200-day line is the most-cited trend filter in markets: invested above it, out below it. We tested it as a standalone strategy across 110 assets. The result is not one-size-fits-all — on crypto it beats Buy & Hold on return AND drawdown AND Sharpe; on index ETFs it gives up almost no return while nearly halving the drawdown; on single stocks it works poorly. An honest map of where regime timing pays and where it doesn't.