PASSED

Moving average crossover (20/50) · exit by 3 × average true range of 10

A trend technique delivers its result despite the trades that turn against it, not because of them. Cutting each trade as soon as price moves far enough from its own best point takes the loss before the technique itself notices the turn — and what remains is better than having no stop at all, provided the level adapts to volatility instead of being a fixed amount.

Measured in crypto — Binance spot · 540 pairs, delisted ones included · 0.2% per round trip

Net per trade

+2.99%

after fees

The fee is charged on both legs: every trade pays to open and pays to close.

Weakest point

placebo

survived all six controls (t=2.67 against a threshold of 2)

Worst drawdown

−45%

566 days underwater

How far the account fell below its own best previous moment.

Timeframe

1 day

The time grid this was measured on. The same technique on a coarser or finer grid is a different measurement, and can earn a different verdict.

invariance
costs
placebo
benchmark
out of sample
multiple testing

Equity curve

Risking 1.0% per trade, marked to market every day — not only when a trade closes. The line at 1.0 is the capital it started with.

At its worst the account was worth 45% less than its own best previous moment, and it spent 566 days below that peak.

The technique against chance

Same number of trades, same holding time, same assets — only the dates were drawn at random.

The average trade and the typical one

The mean sits above the median: the lottery signature — the typical trade loses and a rare handful pays for everything.

What was measured

We coded the rule exactly as it is described and let it trade on its own from 2017-08-17 to 2026-07-28. It found trades in 540 coins, 14,842 in total. Each one enters and exits at the price that existed on that day — the program never sees what comes next, which is the most common mistake people make testing strategies at home. Wherever the description was ambiguous we took the reading least favourable to the technique; whatever was left open is stated in the hypothesis, at the foot of this page.

How many of those trades actually count

Only 256 of the 14,842. Cryptocurrencies rise and fall almost in unison, so the same rule fires on dozens of coins on the same day — and that is one bet repeated, not dozens of different bets. Counting them all separately is the trick that makes a bad test look impressive.

What it paid, before any deductions

+3.19% per trade. This is the number the technique claims, and the only one on this page that has not yet been through a single control.

Why it passed

It survived every mundane explanation we tested:

the profit spread across the trades instead of coming from a handful
the edge survived the broker's fee
it paid more than entering on randomly drawn dates
it paid more than buying and holding for the same stretch
the result came back in the separated pieces of the data
it survived the discount for having tested many versions

What would have happened to the money

Risking 1.0% of capital per trade — the most widely taught rule — across the whole period: The capital would have ended at 6.89× what it started with. At its worst the account was worth 45% less than its own best previous moment, and it spent 566 days below that peak. In none of the 12 paths tested did it fall to less than half of what it started with.

The account would not fit every signal

33% of the trades had to be turned down: by the time they appeared, the money was already tied up in other positions. That matters because the average return per trade the technique claims is computed over trades that nobody could have taken all of.

The effect sits at the start of the period, not the end

Cutting the period into four equal pieces: in the first, 2017-10-11 a 2022-07-07, the technique returned +7.77% per trade — a number this engine can assert. In the last, 2025-04-29 a 2026-07-27, it returned +0.15%, which cannot be told apart from zero. The average over the whole period mixes the two and hides the difference: it is what remains of an edge that no longer shows up in the most recent slice. What this does not say: that the edge is gone. The last slice holds 39 independent episodes, and with that much data it could not tell even a reasonable effect from zero. What can be asserted is narrower, and it is the part that matters to anyone trading today: the result of the whole comes from a period that has already passed, and the recent slice does not confirm it.

What this result does NOT say

Clearing the six controls is not a promise of future profit, and it is not advice to trade. It means only this: over this period and in this universe, we did not find the mundane explanation that knocked the others down. An edge that existed may be running out — this archive holds a technique that passed and whose most recent slice of time is already negative. The difference matters, and it is the rule of this house: the card confronts the claim, never the person who made it.

What this card does not measure

Every verdict holds for the conditions it was measured under. These are this card's — and outside them the result does not apply.

One market, one universe: Measured on 540 spot cryptocurrency pairs, delisted ones included. It says nothing about futures, equities or indices, nor about how the same technique behaves in another market.
One window of time, not every window: The measured period runs from 2017-08-17 to 2026-07-28. A market moves through regimes, and a technique can work in one and fail in another — the card measures the regimes that fit inside this window, not the ones still to come.
One cost structure: The cost charged is 0.10% per leg, in and out. Anyone paying more than that gets a worse result, and anyone paying less gets a better one — the verdict holds for this fee.
One exit rule: The trade was closed by: the technique itself (held until the opposite signal). The same entry measured with a different exit is a different strategy, and can earn a different verdict — it happens in this archive.
The number of trades is not the sample size: There are 14,842 trades, but only 256 independent market episodes: a single move fires the technique across dozens of assets at once, and counting those as separate observations inflates any result. It is the smaller number that governs the arithmetic. With 256 episodes, what the data supports is a range from +0.95% to +5.42% per trade — the published average is the centre of it, not the exact measurement.
Daily bars: Measured at the daily close. Nothing here measures what happens inside the day, and an intraday technique is not auditable with this data.

Numbers and reproducibility

The six controls

control	status	t	threshold	episodes
invariance	passed	—	—	—
costs	passed	2.63	1.97	256
placebo	passed	2.67	1.97	256
benchmark	passed	—	—	—
out of sample	passed	—	—	—
multiple testing	passed	—	—	—

invariance14842 signals across 750934 barsconcentration: +42.20% of the profit sits in the top 5% of trades — with the dates shuffled, +39.15% (fails above +50.00%)
costsgross +3.187% · cost 0.200% · net +2.987% (t=2.63)
placeboactual +2.987% · placebo -0.088% · excess +3.074% ± 1.149% (t=2.67 against a threshold of 1.97, 256 real groups, 742,100 sham dates, draw error ±0.034%)
benchmarktechnique +2.99% · buy and hold (same horizon) +0.48% · excess +2.51%
out of sampleasset half A: +3.028% (t=3.26, 238 episodes) · asset half B: +2.947% (t=2.50, 253 episodes) · liquid half (>= US$ 2,066,613/day): +3.054% (t=2.64, 255 episodes) · illiquid half: +2.909% (t=2.40, 227 episodes) · period 1/4 (2017-10-11 a 2022-07-07): +7.768% (t=3.74, 133 episodes) · period 2/4 (2022-07-08 a 2023-12-17): +1.557% (t=1.49, 45 episodes) · period 3/4 (2023-12-18 a 2025-04-28): +2.481% (t=1.71, 42 episodes) · period 4/4 (2025-04-29 a 2026-07-27): +0.148% (t=0.18, 39 episodes)The edge decayed: +7.77% (t=3.74) in the first quarter of the period, +0.15% (t=0.18) in the last. The partitions that replicate above are across assets, not across time.
multiple testing1 variation(s) tested · t=2.63 across 256 episodes (equivalent to t=2.62) · p≈0.0089 · false positives expected by chance ≈ 0.01

Equity — outside the six controls, and here is why

The t of the trade series is invariant to bet size: 0.5%, 1% and 3% agree to the sixth decimal. Nothing here moves the verdict — it moves what the account would have lived through.

risking 1.0% per trade: ×6.89
worst drawdown from the peak: −45%
days below the previous peak: 566
signals refused for lack of capital: 33%
paths where the account halved (out of 12): 0

Reproducibility

period: 2017-08-17 to 2026-07-28
assets that traded: 540
variations tested before this one: 1
gross per trade: +3.19%
net per trade: +2.99%
exit rule: the technique itself (held until the opposite signal)
median duration bars: 12
mean duration bars: 15.7
max duration bars: 114
fee per leg: 0.001
episode days: 12
seed: 20260728
fast average: 20
slow average: 50
ATR factor: 3
ATR period: 10
base: Moving average crossover (20/50)

Binance spot klines (delisted pairs included) · collected from 2026-07-27 23:31 to 2026-08-03 10:49 · 540 assets · 750,934 bars · 2017-08-17 to 2026-07-28

Hypothesis, filed before the result

Adjusting the stop by volatility, at three times the current 10-day average true range, measured from the trade's favourable extreme. It backs away on 40.3% of the bars and on 100% of the trades — it enters as an exit rule, for the same reason as the dev-stop. Family-level prediction, recorded before measuring: (1) the stop IMPROVES concentration and worsens the mean — it cuts the right tail along with the left, and control 1 is where the 20/50 crossover already dies; if any card in this family changes its verdict relative to the base, I expect it to be by clearing the invariant, not by gaining return; (2) the VOLATILITY stops will do better than the fixed percentage, because that is what the source claims («the ones most likely to work need to adapt to volatility, and not to a fixed value in money or percentage of price») and the claim is testable; (3) the 12 × average true range of 252 will almost never be touched — it is far too wide a stop for crypto, and will measure practically the same thing as the base with no stop; (4) the profit TARGETS will do worse than the stops, because the source's own table shows that the best result for the slow average was WITHOUT profit taking; (5) none survives the family's Benjamini-Hochberg.

filed on 2026-08-03, before the number existed

The original, as it was filed

Ajustar o stop pela volatilidade, a três vezes a amplitude real média corrente de 10 dias, medida do extremo favorável da operação. ⚠️ Recua em 40,3% das velas e em 100% das operações — entra como regra de saída, pelo mesmo motivo do dev-stop. Previsão da família, registrada antes de medir: (1) o stop MELHORA a concentração e piora a média — ele corta a cauda direita junto com a esquerda, e o controle 1 é onde o cruzamento 20/50 já morre; se algum card desta família mudar de veredito em relação à base, espero que seja por sair do invariante, não por ganhar retorno; (2) os stops de VOLATILIDADE irão melhor que o percentual fixo, porque é isso que a fonte afirma («os que têm mais chance de funcionar precisam se adaptar à volatilidade, e não a um valor fixo em dinheiro ou percentual do preço») e a afirmação é testável; (3) o 12 × amplitude real de 252 dias quase nunca será tocado — é um stop largo demais para cripto, e vai medir praticamente a mesma coisa que a base sem stop; (4) os ALVOS de lucro irão pior que os stops, porque a própria fonte mostra na tabela dela que o melhor resultado da média lenta foi SEM tomada de lucro; (5) nenhuma sobrevive ao Benjamini-Hochberg da família.

Quotations from the source were translated from the Portuguese record and back into English — they are not the author's exact words.

Pre-registration exists to keep prediction apart from rationalisation: written after the number, every hypothesis is right.

Earlier audits of the same technique

Each variation an author teaches enters as its own test, so that whatever might work in the strategy gets covered. The verdict changed along the way — a fix in the engine changes the number, and that is a fact that has to stay visible. No earlier record was deleted.

2026-08-03INCONCLUSIVEopen ↗
this measurement →PASSED