The "hacked again" reflex is wrong. What the Polymarket case actually shows — and the two places where crypto genuinely is harder.

Five weeks ago it was 10,000 backtests; today it's over 40,000. With 4x the data, the "beats Buy & Hold" rate falls from 64% to 52%, four in five runs land below 50% win rate, and one memecoin still holds its 197,923% record. What selection bias does to sample size — on real numbers.

"Invested in AI healthcare" can mean two almost opposite things. Two real companies show it: an annuity machine with ~86% recurring revenue — and an option with not a single approved drug. Same label, opposite risk DNA.

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.

"Price gaps always fill" is a myth. What the evidence actually shows — for stock gaps, and for the CME gap, which became history in May 2026.

STRC is below par and the debate is loud. We separate mechanics from myth: how STRC and MSTR work, the misconceptions circulating, and where the risk and the opportunity sit.