H-024: Relative strength rotation: hold the 3 strongest coins (1- and 3-day), skip extreme one-day jumps, only while BTC is above its 200-day average

Fail Family: trend · Status: rejected

Does crypto momentum rotation with filters beat holding? The idea did not beat simply buying the coin and holding it. It is rejected.

Result

since_2020: does not beat the equal-weight basket; since_2022: beats the equal-weight basket

Sharpe: return per unit of risk (higher is better). CAGR: average yearly growth. Max drawdown: worst fall from a peak. p-value: chance the result is luck (lower is better). “Hold” columns are buy-and-hold for the same asset and days. Glossary

Asset	Period	Sharpe	Hold Sharpe	CAGR	Hold CAGR	Max drawdown	Hold drawdown	In market	p-value	Beats hold	Counts as win
PORTFOLIO	since_2020 (2020-01-01 → 2026-10-20)	0.76	1.13	+32.3%	+75.6%	-80.1%	-77.0%	59%	0.102	no	no
PORTFOLIO	since_2022 (2022-01-01 → 2026-10-20)	0.44	0.41	+10.5%	+6.5%	-49.0%	-67.0%	52%	0.040	yes	no

Equity curves

Growth of 1 unit, log scale, fees included. Only days on which the rule is fully defined are counted.

Asset and period:

Why it might work

Proposed by ChatGPT (via F1DevBin), model C of its plan, adapted from hourly to daily data. Coins that outperform the others over 1 and 3 days (the 24 h / 72 h windows of the proposal) keep outperforming for a while; buying right after an extreme one-day jump catches the reversal instead, so those coins are skipped; and the whole thing only runs while the market as a whole (BTC) is in an uptrend. Ranking by return relative to BTC gives exactly the same order as ranking by raw return, so the proposal's models A and B are one test (H-025). Benchmark: an equal-weight basket of the same coins, rebalanced daily without fees. Hourly trading was not tested: with 0.1% fees per side a daily-held signal is the cheapest version of the idea, if this fails the hourly one is very unlikely to survive costs.

Verdict history

2026-10-21: Fail (this engine, data to 2026-10-20)

Pre-registered specification

kind: cross_section
signal:
  type: momentum
  lookbacks:
  - 1
  - 3
  overheat_z: 2.5
  z_window: 30
  market_filter:
    asset: BTCUSDT
    window: 200
select:
  top: 3
fee: 0.001
universe:
- BTCUSDT
- ETHUSDT
- SOLUSDT
- BNBUSDT
- XRPUSDT
- ADAUSDT
- LTCUSDT
- LINKUSDT
- DOGEUSDT
- XLMUSDT
- TRXUSDT
periods:
- name: since_2020
  start: '2020-01-01'
- name: since_2022
  start: '2022-01-01'
significance:
  method: circular_shift
  n: 1000
  alpha: 0.0167
criterion:
  min_wins:
    since_2020: 1
    since_2022: 1
  require_significance: true