Same strategy. Same coin set (top 50 by volume). Same period. Only the stop loss changed.
Scope note: measured on the Binance-era 572-coin universe (top-50 subset below); the platform has since migrated to OKX (current universe 280+). Numbers preserved as measured.
Setup: BB Squeeze SHORT, TP 8%, top 50 coins by volume, Nov 2023 ~ Apr 2026.
Head-to-Head
| Metric | SL 3% | SL 10% | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Trades | 2,256 | 2,187 | — |
| Win Rate | 38.21% | 53.82% | SL 10% |
| Profit Factor | 1.14 | 1.19 | SL 10% |
| Total Return | +11.92% | +19.66% | SL 10% |
| Max Drawdown | 6.26% | 9.39% | SL 3% |
| Sharpe Ratio | 0.68 | 0.76 | SL 10% |
| Sortino Ratio | 1.37 | 1.40 | SL 10% |
| Avg Win | +5.51% | +5.22% | SL 3% |
| Avg Loss | -2.98% | -5.10% | SL 3% |
| SL Hits | 1,247 | 290 | SL 10% |
| TP Hits | 496 | 629 | SL 10% |
| Timeouts | 513 | 1,268 | — |
| Fees Paid | 7.22% | 7.00% | SL 10% |
What the Numbers Say
SL 3% gets stopped out constantly. 1,247 stop-loss hits vs 290. The tight stop turns noise into realized losses. Win rate drops to 38% because most trades don’t get room to breathe.
SL 10% lets trades develop. Win rate jumps to 54%. TP hits increase from 496 to 629. More trades reach the target instead of getting cut early.
The return gap is real. +19.66% vs +11.92%. SL 10% made 65% more money over the same period.
But the drawdown trade-off exists. MDD 9.39% vs 6.26%. The wider stop means bigger individual losses when you’re wrong. If your risk tolerance is tight, the 3% stop keeps drawdowns smaller.
Per-Coin Breakdown (Top 5 by Return)
SL 3%
| Coin | Trades | Win Rate | Return |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNI | 60 | 46.67% | +76.34% |
| ONDO | 54 | 46.30% | +67.51% |
| DOGE | 63 | 46.03% | +62.87% |
| ETH | 58 | 44.83% | +53.09% |
| PEPE | 64 | 37.50% | +51.98% |
SL 10%
| Coin | Trades | Win Rate | Return |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNI | 57 | 61.40% | +118.77% |
| ONDO | 53 | 71.70% | +116.38% |
| SUI | 55 | 61.82% | +91.24% |
| WLD | 58 | 60.34% | +76.52% |
| VET | 61 | 60.66% | +60.76% |
UNI returned +76% with SL 3% and +119% with SL 10%. Same coin, same strategy, 55% more return just from wider stops.
The Worst Losers
SL 3%
| Coin | Return | Trades |
|---|---|---|
| KAS | -54.73% | 72 |
| NEAR | -42.58% | 51 |
SL 10%
| Coin | Return | Trades |
|---|---|---|
| M | -62.32% | 10 ⚠ low sample |
| KAS | -42.52% | 68 |
The two lists intersect on KAS alone (SL 3%: KAS, NEAR · SL 10%: M, KAS). It is not “both lose on the same coins” — it is that KAS lands on the worst list at either stop width: there, the stop width does not fix the problem.
⚠ The worst entry for SL 10%, M at −62.32%, has only 10 trades. It is the one cell out of 14 that sits under n=30 in this table, so read it as insufficient sample, not as performance (our engine flags anything under 30 trades as sitting in the noise band).
So What
For BB Squeeze SHORT on the top 50 coins, tallying the “Edge” column above gives SL 10%: 8 · SL 3%: 3 · tie: 2. The three SL 3% wins are drawdown (6.26% vs 9.39%), average win, and average loss (−2.98% vs −5.10%) — so it is not “everything except drawdown”: the columns that measure how much you lose at once go to the tighter stop. Total return, win rate and PF favour the wider stop; size-of-loss favours the tighter one.
A tight stop feels safer but the missed upside is a real cost; a wide stop looks better until one loss lands. This table does not say which is right — the answer depends on what you can sit through.
The right stop loss depends on your risk tolerance, not the strategy alone. Test both on your setup: PRUVIQ Simulator.