Arena Blog
Data-driven insights on trading strategies, backtests, and market analysis.
25–36 of 83 posts · page 3 of 7
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.
Sell Before the Midterm Year? In Midterm Years the Stock Market Performs Worse Than Usual — but Rarely in the Autumn.
Across 18 midterm years since 1954 the S&P fell 17.7 percent from its high on average — but only 5 of them had a 19-percent drop inside the second half. What the number measures, how much of it reaches Bitcoin (through the S&P, not through yields), and why Bitcoin's own midterm-year bears come from the halving.
What Is Metcalfe's Law — and Does It Hold for Bitcoin?
A network's value grows with the square of its participants — says Metcalfe's Law. Where it came from, where it was ever measured, why it describes 15 years of Bitcoin well, and why the "seven-year low in active addresses" headline still counts no users.
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.
Why your 5× grid bot rarely gets liquidated — and why that isn't safety
A leveraged long grid was liquidated in 1 of 70 ninety-day windows since 2017 — because a grid never deploys more than half its notional. What leverage does instead: it deepens every drawdown and pays funding in the down windows.
Bitcoin doesn't tip when enough managers understand it. It tips when a zero allocation becomes the risky choice.
The 25 percent tipping point quoted in every adoption argument comes from a naming game with 18 to 30 players per group and no right answer. It counts people; prices respond to dollars. What tips in large portfolios is not understanding but the answer to one question: what happens to me if I am the only one at zero?
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.
A Tale of Bulls, Bears and Whales
A market fable in two acts — and what it is meant to teach.
Coin Days Destroyed as a Bitcoin Signal: The Pattern Is Real. The Edge Is Not.
Rising Bitcoin while long-term holders sit still counts as deeply bullish on-chain. We replicated the pattern — and asked the one question missing: compared to what?
The Index Inclusion Effect Has Vanished. In Bitcoin ETFs, Flows Follow Price, Not the Other Way Round.
Everyone says index money buys your stock forever. At the one moment that buying is visible, the price no longer moves. We then tested both directions on Bitcoin ETF flows — and only the backward one survived.
The Median Altcoin Loses to Bitcoin in 3 of 4 Quarters. "Uptrending" Makes It Worse.
Screeners label altcoins "uptrending vs BTC" and stop there. We measured what followed the label across 370 pairs and 458,000 days — and what followed any day.
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