The current strategy, in full.
Read out-of-sample first.
Strategy v2.3 is Koryu's current stack: an ensemble-gated majors long and a frozen bear-score short, run as one shared account that is long, short, or cash and never two at once. The spec evolves by dated amendment on a continuous record, and the amendments are part of the story: v2.2 rebuilt the short (five-day confirmation, a Fear & Greed floor, profit-taking, three staggered cohorts) and v2.3, adopted 2026-07-29, added a capitulation floor: no new shorts while Bitcoin implied volatility (DVOL) is at or above the 36th percentile of its own history. It is a candidate under evaluation, not a validated strategy, so the out-of-sample window leads and the caveats stay loud. The exact frozen spec runs forward, marked daily with no capital, on the shadow page, the live forward record. The prior rule, v1.0, is archived. None of this is advice.
Read it honestly: the headline is the out-of-sample window since 2023-10-16, not the full-window multiple, which is the luckiest pick on both of the grids below it. Two independent measures of luck agree. Rebalancing on a different cadence gives a median of 420.7x across 14 intervals; starting the same 12-day grid on a different day of the cycle gives a median of 480.6x across all 12 of them. Neither knows about the other. The shipped configuration is the maximum on both, so the honest expectation is that region, not the full-window figure. The shipped grid is the best of the 12 on Sharpe as well, so this is not a case where only the headline multiple drew well: read the median as the honest expectation on both counts. The whole Sharpe range across those grids is 1.15 to 1.76. Backtests overstate live results; this is the candidate under evaluation, not a validated strategy, and the forward shadow marked daily with no capital is on the shadow page.
One account, long / short / cash
A single total-NAV track from $100,000 over the out-of-sample window, with the area beneath coloured by which sleeve the strategy had live each day. Log scale, so the early growth isn't crushed by the late compounding.
Out-of-sample window (since 2023-10-16), $100,000 base, log scale. The dashed vertical marks where the live shadow begins (2026-07-16); the boxed figure is the endpoint NAV. Over this window BTC buy-and-hold returned 2.8x; the full vs-BTC comparison is in the edge-vs-beta section below. Data through 2026-10-23.
How the money was made
854 spells in one shared account that is long, short, or cash. A 63.9% win rate (net of funding and fees) that pays because the winners run larger than the losers.
Every trade figure in this section is net of funding and fees. A spell is one coin held continuously across consecutive rebalances: a coin still in the top-5 at the 12-day rebalance keeps its position, so the long holds come in multiples of the cadence (12 / 24 / 36…). The short book is rebuilt at every rebalance, so short spells run about 12 days.
Every spell closes at a rebalance, at the short sleeve's 20% take-profit (added in v2.2), when the regime gate turns off, or by forced liquidation when a short is squeezed through its margin. The spec has no stop-loss.
| REBALANCE | 523 | 53.9% win | +2.1% |
| TAKE_PROFIT | 226 | 100.0% win | +24.6% |
| GATE_EXIT | 90 | 42.2% win | +25.8% |
| LIQUIDATED | 15 | 0.0% win | -100.7% |
Each sleeve’s share of the 854 spells. The long leg carried it; the short is the weak leg, many trades but a small average return.
| long | 179 tr | 51.4% win | +26.2% |
| short | 675 tr | 67.3% win | +4.1% |
Every long and short spell the candidate would have held, newest first. Filter by sleeve; download the full set as CSV. Returns are net of funding and fees; the CSV splits each into price, funding and fees.
| sleeve | coin | entered | exited | days | exit | net return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| long | SOL | 2026-08-25 | 2026-10-12 | 48 | GATE_EXIT | +9.1% |
| long | LTC | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-12 | 12 | GATE_EXIT | -9.6% |
| long | LINK | 2026-08-25 | 2026-10-12 | 48 | GATE_EXIT | +11.4% |
| long | DOT | 2026-09-18 | 2026-10-12 | 24 | GATE_EXIT | +2.7% |
| long | AVAX | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-12 | 12 | GATE_EXIT | -7.6% |
| long | ETH | 2026-08-25 | 2026-09-30 | 36 | REBALANCE | +9.5% |
| long | BNB | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-30 | 24 | REBALANCE | +1.8% |
| long | ADA | 2026-08-25 | 2026-09-18 | 24 | REBALANCE | +6.9% |
| long | XRP | 2026-08-25 | 2026-09-06 | 12 | REBALANCE | -1.1% |
| short | JTO | 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-22 | 12 | REBALANCE | -2.9% |
| short | HMSTR | 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-22 | 12 | REBALANCE | +12.9% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-22 | 12 | REBALANCE | -24.9% |
| short | DEXE | 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-21 | 11 | TAKE_PROFIT | +79.8% |
| short | WLD | 2026-07-06 | 2026-07-18 | 12 | REBALANCE | +7.9% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-07-06 | 2026-07-18 | 12 | REBALANCE | -6.8% |
| short | XPL | 2026-07-06 | 2026-07-16 | 10 | TAKE_PROFIT | +20.7% |
| short | WLD | 2026-07-02 | 2026-07-14 | 12 | REBALANCE | -2.8% |
| short | HEI | 2026-07-02 | 2026-07-14 | 12 | REBALANCE | +2.4% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-07-02 | 2026-07-14 | 12 | REBALANCE | -6.7% |
| short | SYN | 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-13 | 3 | TAKE_PROFIT | +19.7% |
| short | HOME | 2026-07-02 | 2026-07-13 | 11 | TAKE_PROFIT | +21.8% |
| short | SYN | 2026-07-06 | 2026-07-11 | 5 | TAKE_PROFIT | +21.5% |
| short | XPL | 2026-06-28 | 2026-07-10 | 12 | REBALANCE | +4.1% |
| short | PORTAL | 2026-06-28 | 2026-07-10 | 12 | REBALANCE | +7.1% |
| short | JTO | 2026-07-06 | 2026-07-10 | 4 | TAKE_PROFIT | +21.6% |
| short | HOME | 2026-06-28 | 2026-07-10 | 12 | REBALANCE | +12.7% |
| short | XPL | 2026-06-24 | 2026-07-06 | 12 | REBALANCE | -18.6% |
| short | JTO | 2026-06-24 | 2026-07-06 | 12 | REBALANCE | -16.2% |
| short | SYN | 2026-07-02 | 2026-07-04 | 2 | TAKE_PROFIT | +30.6% |
| short | HEI | 2026-06-28 | 2026-07-03 | 5 | TAKE_PROFIT | +21.6% |
| short | XPL | 2026-06-20 | 2026-07-02 | 12 | REBALANCE | -0.9% |
| short | JTO | 2026-06-20 | 2026-07-02 | 12 | REBALANCE | -10.7% |
| short | HOME | 2026-06-20 | 2026-07-01 | 11 | TAKE_PROFIT | +20.9% |
| short | HOME | 2026-06-24 | 2026-07-01 | 7 | TAKE_PROFIT | +24.2% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-06-28 | 2026-07-01 | 3 | TAKE_PROFIT | +23.8% |
| short | WLD | 2026-06-24 | 2026-06-29 | 5 | TAKE_PROFIT | +20.3% |
| short | XLM | 2026-06-16 | 2026-06-28 | 12 | TAKE_PROFIT | +19.6% |
| short | JTO | 2026-06-16 | 2026-06-28 | 12 | REBALANCE | -3.6% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-06-16 | 2026-06-28 | 12 | REBALANCE | +17.0% |
| short | ALLO | 2026-06-20 | 2026-06-27 | 7 | TAKE_PROFIT | +21.6% |
Is the edge a handful of trades?
The fair question for a book this skewed: did a few moonshots make the whole result? We delete the biggest winners and re-measure the average of what is left, then trim both tails to be fair about it.
The hard test first, ranked by realized percentage return: strip only the largest winners. Delete the ten biggest and the remaining 844 spells still average +4.6% at a per-trade t of 5.28, above the |t| > 3 bar. The edge sits in the body of the distribution, not in the moonshots. Returns here are net of funding and fees.
The balanced test is a symmetric trim: remove the top-N winners and the bottom-N losers and re-measure the middle. Deleting losers helps the mean, so this fair version runs a touch above the winners-only one; trim ten from each end and the per-trade t is still 7.61 by percent. One asymmetry, stated honestly: the two tails are not the same size. The worst spell is -112.5% (a liquidated short that also paid funding, so it lost more than its stake) while the best is uncapped at +969.3% (a moonshot), so “ten from each end” deletes far more magnitude from the winners’ side than the losers’. The per-trade edge survives trimming both ends regardless.
| trimmed each end | trades | avg trade | per-trade t |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 854 | +8.7% | 4.74 |
| ±1 | 852 | +7.8% | 5.33 |
| ±3 | 848 | +6.6% | 6.34 |
| ±5 | 844 | +6.3% | 6.7 |
| ±10 | 834 | +5.9% | 7.61 |
| ±20 | 814 | +6.1% | 9.67 |
| trimmed each end | trades | avg trade | per-trade t |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 854 | +8.7% | 4.74 |
| ±1 | 852 | +8.6% | 4.67 |
| ±3 | 848 | +8.4% | 4.59 |
| ±5 | 844 | +7% | 4.96 |
| ±10 | 834 | +6.2% | 4.58 |
| ±20 | 814 | +5.9% | 4.37 |
Does the edge hold across regimes?
Every calendar year is positive in this backtest, the 2022 bear included, but not evenly. 2021 alone multiplied the book 48.5x, so the full-window multiple leans on that one year. This is why the out-of-sample window leads.
| year | regime | return | sharpe | t-stat | days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 · part | Recovery | +2.6% | 4.4 | 2.2 | 92 |
| 2020 | Bull | +95% | 1.09 | 1.09 | 366 |
| 2021 | Bull | +4,753.1% | 3.59 | 3.59 | 365 |
| 2022 | Bear | +56% | 1.17 | 1.17 | 365 |
| 2023 | Recovery | +124.9% | 1.52 | 1.52 | 365 |
| 2024 | Bull | +123% | 1.32 | 1.32 | 366 |
| 2025 | Bull | +79.5% | 1.84 | 1.84 | 365 |
| 2026 · part | YTD | +25.5% | 1.03 | 0.93 | 296 |
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | ||||||||||||
| 2020 | 24 | 11 | 12 | 39 | ||||||||
| 2021 | 171 | 124 | 14 | 50 | 21 | 48 | -20 | 80 | 10 | 21 | 16 | 15 |
| 2022 | 34 | 11 | -19 | 36 | -12 | -21 | 16 | 22 | ||||
| 2023 | 26 | 18 | -19 | 32 | 45 | |||||||
| 2024 | -14 | 44 | -17 | 153 | -18 | |||||||
| 2025 | 15 | 26 | 11 | 20 | ||||||||
| 2026 | 15 | 15 |
Skill, or just crypto beta?
Regressed on BTC and ETH: low beta, near-zero R², and an alpha that clears the t > 3 bar. The return is not just the majors' tape.
| index | return | CAGR | β | R² | corr | ann. α (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy v2.3 | +171,032% | – | – | – | – | – |
| Bitcoin BTC | +879.1% | +38.1% | 0.28 | 0.068 | 0.26 | +200% (4.74) |
| Ethereum ETH | +1,259.2% | +44.7% | 0.2 | 0.062 | 0.25 | +200.7% (4.73) |
The R² is near zero against both majors: BTC and ETH explain almost none of the daily variance, and the beta is low. Stripping that exposure, the annualised alpha clears the t > 3 bar on both. The Treynor-Mazuy timing term is positive and significant too (t 8.52 vs BTC, 6.95 vs ETH): part of the return is timing, long in rising markets and short or in cash in falling ones, which is what the regime gates are built to do. In-sample, no Newey-West adjustment, so read these t-stats as upper bounds.
Is the edge real, or luck?
A per-trade edge that survives trimming, and a daily t-stat of 4.69 that clears the multiple-testing bar in the backtest. Still a candidate: the drawdown is deep, and validation rests on the forward shadow, not on this number.
The t-statistic to anchor on is 4.69. Harvey, Liu and Zhu (2016) argue that because researchers test thousands of strategies, the usual t > 2 bar is far too lax, and a genuine finding should clear roughly |t| > 3. This backtest clears it (Shishin's equity stack clears it at 5.45). Read that as necessary, not sufficient: it is an in-sample figure on a spec amended with this history in view, so it cannot validate the strategy by itself. The Probabilistic Sharpe Ratio, the probability the true Sharpe is above zero after correcting for non-normal returns, is 100.0%: in this sample the edge is very likely positive. Whether it holds forward is the shadow's question.
The Deflated Sharpe Ratio is the strictest test, and here it comes with a caveat. It is computed against the cadence-grid trial pool only (14 configurations), not the full search that produced the v2 family, so it undercounts how many things were tried and should be read as generous. On that limited pool the deflated probability the edge is real is 100.0%, but because it does not count every configuration, it is not a clean pass. For a candidate, no backtest test is the headline; the forward shadow is.
The returns are highly non-normal: positively skewed (skew 2.9) with fat tails (excess kurtosis 59) and a high 60% annualised volatility. That is the nature of a concentrated crypto momentum book: the volatility is dominated by upside, the occasional explosive winner, which is why the out-of-sample drawdown stays near 28.4%. But that same skew concentrates the result in a handful of periods, and the full-window drawdown is deep at 36.0%, so the ratios are flattered by the very upside they are built on. We report the Probabilistic and Deflated Sharpe precisely because they correct for that non-normality, where the raw Sharpe assumes it away.
Taken together: a real per-trade edge on a genuinely non-normal book, a daily t-stat that clears the multiple-testing bar in the backtest, a deep full-window drawdown and a result concentrated in its best year. That is why it runs forward in the public shadow as a candidate rather than being asserted as validated. The rolling Sharpe below is the consistency check, how the risk-adjusted return held up over every trailing one-year window, not a single end-point number. Decisions are yours.
The Sharpe ratio measured over every trailing 365-day window, a test of consistency, not a single end-point number.
Strategy v1.0, the long-only gated-majors rule, is still what the daily board attests and publishes. Its full record, backtest and published era both, is kept in the archive.
The skeptic's questions
Is v2 a live track record?
No, and it does not pretend to be. The curve here is a backtest of the frozen v2 spec (currently v2.3), so the honest headline is the out-of-sample window, not the in-sample-inflated full multiple. What runs live is the forward shadow: the same spec, marked daily with no capital, accruing a public record one committed day at a time. Koryu trades nothing.
Why does v2 lead the record if it is still a candidate?
Because it is the current strategy: the newest, most complete version of the rule, and the one the shadow is testing forward. Leading with it, warts and all, is more honest than burying it below a flattering older curve. Its history of weaknesses and the dated amendments that addressed them (a rebuilt short in v2.2, a volatility stand-down in v2.3) are shown on this page and on the shadow, not hidden. The prior rule, v1.0, is archived.
Does the board publish v2?
No. The daily attested board still publishes v1.0's selection; v2 stays shadow-only until it clears more validation. This page is about what the current strategy is and how it has measured, not a change to what Koryu publishes or attests.
Is the edge validated?
Not yet. The per-trade edge survives trimming both tails of the distribution, and the daily t-statistic (4.69) clears the |t| > 3 multiple-testing bar in the backtest. But it is a backtest of a spec amended with this history in view, the drawdown is deep, and the full-window result leans on one explosive year (2021). Validation is decided by the forward shadow record and the pre-registered adoption path, not by a backtest statistic, and that has not happened yet. That is why it is a candidate in shadow rather than the strategy the board publishes. Decisions are yours.
Why measure against BTC and ETH?
For crypto, the bar is not a savings account but just holding the majors. v2 is regressed on both BTC and ETH; the question is whether anything survives that exposure, and the alpha does, at low beta and near-zero R-squared. The comparison stays on the page in the windows it is unflattering.