TRADING IQ
Raise Your Trading IQ.
Learn what works. See what doesn't. Backtesting methodology, risk management, and lessons from 230 coins and 88 parameter variations.
Week of 2026-07-06: MACD Cross LONG leads, HV Squeeze drops
Weekly crypto strategy rankings — 29 strategies tested across top-50 coins.
Week of 2026-06-29: Stochastic RSI leads, ATR Breakout SHORT drops
Weekly crypto strategy rankings — 29 strategies tested across top-50 coins.
We Verified Every Strategy. Not One Beat Buy-and-Hold. (The Receipts)
Across BTC, ETH and SOL over nine years — two full bear markets included — we put every strategy head-to-head against simply holding. Not one produced a higher return than buy-and-hold. Here is the full scoreboard, including the one thing that did win — and what 'winning' actually meant.
We Stopped Trying to Beat the Market. Here's What We Found Instead.
We tested 34 strategies — every indicator, every pattern, and the unconventional ones nobody runs: rebalancing premiums, volatility harvesting, carry, regime-switching. Directional prediction: zero edge, every time. But changing the question gave us a real, honest answer.
Week of 2026-06-22: MACD Cross leads, SuperTrend LONG drops
Weekly crypto strategy rankings — 24 strategies tested across top-50 coins.
Altcoins Are Less Efficient — and It Still Doesn't Help
The hope is seductive: majors are too efficient, but small alts are sloppy enough to beat. We tested four liquidity tiers. The inefficiency is real — and the trading cost eats it many times over. The smallest coins are literally untradeable at size.
Are Crypto Trading Signals Worth It? An Honest Answer
Paid signal groups promise calls that beat the market for a monthly fee. Here's the uncomfortable economics: if someone had a signal that reliably beat the market, selling it to you for $50 a month would be the worst possible use of it. The business model itself is the tell.
Build and Verify Any Strategy — No Code, Real Fees
Most people argue about strategies. You can just test yours. A walkthrough of building any entry/exit rule from scratch — 13 indicators, custom conditions, trailing or signal exits — and seeing its real expectancy after fees in one click.
Can You Make a Living Day Trading Crypto? The Honest Math
It's the dream sold by every trading course: quit your job, trade from a laptop, compound your way to freedom. We won't tell you it's impossible — but the math of edges and costs makes it far harder than the highlight reels suggest. Here's what actually has to be true.
Do Fibonacci Retracements Work in Trading?
Price 'respects' the 0.618 level — until it doesn't. Fibonacci retracements feel mystical and look precise. But there's no mechanism for why a medieval rabbit-breeding ratio would predict crypto prices, and the data behaves exactly like every other support level: it works in hindsight and fails forward.
Do Head and Shoulders Patterns Actually Work?
Head and shoulders, double tops, flags, wedges — chart patterns are the visual heart of technical analysis. But there's a problem no pattern-trading course mentions: no two traders draw the same pattern, and the data behaves like every other directional signal. We explain why.
Does Copy Trading Work? What to Check Before You Mirror Anyone
Copy trading lets you mirror a top trader's positions automatically. The pitch is compelling: ride the experts. But leaderboards are built to be gamed, survivorship bias hides the blowups, and the incentives often point away from your interests. Here's how to look at it honestly.
Does Grid Trading Work? The Hidden Risk Nobody Mentions
Grid bots promise to profit from sideways chop by buying low and selling high on autopilot. The backtests look smooth and the equity curve climbs steadily — until one move erases months of gains. Here's why grid trading is short volatility in disguise, and what that costs you.
Does MACD Work? A Backtest of the Famous Crossover
MACD crossovers, histogram flips, divergences — a whole language built on one indicator. We backtested MACD signal-line crossovers across 391 coins. The win rate was 50%, a literal coin flip, and after fees it lost. Here's why a derivative of two moving averages can't see the future.
Does RSI Work for Crypto Trading? We Backtested It
Buy when RSI drops below 30, sell when it crosses 70 — the most popular oscillator strategy there is. We tested RSI oversold/overbought entries across 391 coins. The win rate was 47%, and the edge after a beta-strip was negative. The reason is a property of RSI everyone forgets.
Does the Golden Cross Actually Work? We Tested It
The golden cross — the 50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day — is the most famous bullish signal in trading. We backtested moving-average crossovers across 391 coins. After fees and a beta-strip, the edge was zero. Here's the data and the reason.
Does Volume Analysis Predict Price? What the Data Shows
'Volume precedes price' is trading gospel. We tested whether volume actually forecasts direction across 121 coins. The honest answer: volume carries a little real information — but not enough to beat trading costs. Here's the nuance most debunkings miss.
Is Scalping Profitable? The Math of Trading Costs
Scalping promises many small wins that add up. The problem is arithmetic: the more often you trade, the more times you pay the fee, and at high frequency the cost is larger than any edge a retail trader can find. Here's why scalping is the hardest game to win — and who actually wins it.
The Only Edge That Survived: Stop Predicting, Start Collecting
We beta-stripped every directional strategy and they all died. One thing survived — and it does not predict direction at all. The case for being the house instead of the gambler.
Trendlines Don't Bounce: 116,400 Trades Say So
Drawing a line under the lows and buying the touch is the most-taught chart pattern there is. We tested it across 391 coins and 116,400 trades. The win rate was 39%. Here's why trendlines look perfect in hindsight and fail going forward.