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May 2026 — Strategy Metrics

Data snapshot: 2026-05-30 23:07 UTC (live/stag). Intra-month live snapshot 05-27, paper cohort 05-26.

Active Live Strategies (05-30)

Strategy Status P&L Trades Volume Win Rate Margin (bps) Avg Hold
MMTV_v15_eth_invgate ACTIVE +$0.15 494 $23,496 59% +0.06 1.7m
MMTV_v15_eth_tape ACTIVE +$0.14 1809 $84,450 60% +0.02 1.4m
MMTV_v15_eth ACTIVE -$0.47 2377 $107,110 61% -0.05 0.9m
MMTV_v15_btc_invgate DISABLED -$1.67 351 $17,388 54% -0.96 1.9m
MMTV_v15_btc_tape DISABLED -$1.07 982 $48,673 57% -0.22 1.7m
MMTV_v15_btc DISABLED -$1.80 1343 $66,679 61% -0.27 0.9m
MR_v19_ETHUSDT ACTIVE +$0.14 1 $50 100% +27.2 23.9m
MR_v19_BTCUSDT ACTIVE +$0.21 1 $50 100% +41.1 32.9m
MR_v19_tight_sr_eth ACTIVE +$0.13 1 $50 100% +25.6 23.9m
MR_v19_tight_sr_btc ACTIVE +$0.17 1 $50 100% +34.1 32.3m
TF_v18_ETHUSDT ACTIVE -$0.79 1 $50 0% -157.4 12.9h
TF_v18_BTCUSDT ACTIVE -$0.51 1 $50 0% -102.8 17.6h
TF_v18_breakout_eth ACTIVE -$0.85 1 $50 0% -170.3 13.0h
TF_v18_er_capped (eth/btc) ACTIVE $0.00 0
StatsArb_v19_ETH_BTC ACTIVE +$0.05 13 $750 46% +0.69 1.2h

Read: MM v15 ETH variants marginally positive at scale (invgate/tape), but the structural-viability memo shows this is within noise of the adverse-selection ceiling, not edge. All BTC MM variants negative + disabled. MR v19 is the live candidate — all 4 variants +26 to +41 bps, 100% win; small n but uniformly positive and not falsifiable in our backtest (held, not killed). TF v18 negative on every variant that traded. StatsArb near-flat.

The Structural Verdicts (the month's real output)

MarketMaking — unviable on BTC/ETH spot

Hypothesis (v9–v15) Verdict
Spread/edge tuning Dead — wider quotes didn't cut fills
Latency / speed Falsified — adverse drift flat −1.7 bps independent of rest-time
Micro-price signal Dead — bounded ±0.25 bps on 1-tick book
TV-divergence taking Dead — backtest at 5 bps taker → 0 of 1812 clear; at the real 1.75 bps taker only ~1-3.6% clear, same adverse mechanics
Cross-venue Binance→OKX lead Real but negligible — IC×σ ≈ 0.04 bps, ~40× under the 1.75 bps taker hurdle
Vol / volume-spike / tape gates All failed

Cause: per-fill P&L = maker rebate − adverse selection ≈ +0.75 − 1.7 = −0.95 bps. We do earn the OKX maker rebate (−0.75 bps), but adverse selection beats it ~2:1 on a 0.01-0.05 bps spread with no queue priority. The v9-v15 cohort modeled maker_fee_bps=0 (rebate ignored) → quoted ~2 bps off TV; a rebate-aware config (~1 bps quote) is an untested operating point that probably doesn't flip the verdict. Structural, not a tuning gap.

Spot Direction — verdict is NOT uniform (TF dead; MR held)

Hypothesis Verdict
TF SMA crossover (v14-18) Dead — net-negative 4 regime windows, even at zero fees
TF Donchian breakout Dead — ETH down-trend −16.51 / 43 trades / 35% win
TF exit tuning (SL/trail) Dead — baseline is local optimum, loss-tail structural
TF 1h timeframe Dead — loss-tail timeframe-invariant
MR 5m (v17-19) NOT dead — held for live evidence. Kline backtest blind to 2s intra-bar entries (uninformative offline). Live: all 4 v19 variants +26 to +41 bps, 100% win, ~25-30min holds. Small n (~3 independent events × 2 symbols)
Kline flow features Weak — IC < 0.04, inconsistent across symbols
Short-horizon reversal Regime-luck — IC 0.05 isn't a business
Multi-day reversal Regime-luck — inconsistent quarter signs, maxDD to −163%
Intermediate (2-4h) reversal Dead full-history — 360d Sharpe +1.31 → −0.42 over 2.5yr
AdaptiveDirectional Dead by transitivity on the TF arm — routes a dead edge + an unprovable one

Cause (TF/breakout/reversal): inverted R:R + regime-dependence. Every in-sample edge shrank to zero/negative under full-history + non-overlapping + net-of-cost + per-quarter validation.

MR is the exception: its 2-second intra-bar entries are invisible to a 5m-kline backtest, so "offline shows no edge" is structurally uninformative — not a verdict. Live is the only ground truth and it's uniformly positive so far, on a sample too small to confirm. Held, not killed (PR #93).

May Cohort Aggregate P&L

Sum of all 84 strategies created in May, back-filled from the two in-May snapshots (frozen final value for disabled strategies @05-27; 05-30 23:07 value for the 17 still-active). The drifting June live snapshot is bypassed. No incident windfall in May, so this needs no asterisk (unlike Mar/Apr). Apples-to-apples with April's −$8.87 "April-created total".

Split P&L Count
Active at month-end -$2.17 17
Disabled / ERROR / KILLED (frozen) -$50.11 67
May-created cohort total -$52.28 84
Family P&L
MarketMakingTrueValue -$43.37
TrendFollowing -$4.23
StatsArb -$2.98
StatsArbOrderflow -$1.94
MeanReversion +$0.24

Read: $43 of the $52 cost is MarketMaking — the v6→v15 churn, dozens of variants trading large volume (one MMTV_v6 instance alone did $105K volume for -$15.69). That -$43 is the empirical price of the MM-unviability verdict: thousands of tiny adverse fills, each a data point proving spread < adverse cost. May's iteration cost was ~6× April's, concentrated in the MM investigation. The non-MM families netted ~-$9, in line with April.

Method caveat: 4 MMTV_v14 instances disabled between 05-27 and 05-30 use the 05-27 value (true final slightly more negative); net effect < $1. Active portion carries ~1 day of residual drift.

Cumulative (all-time, through May)

Category Note
Active live Near-flat; MM-ETH marginally +, MR tiny sample, TF negative
May cohort -$52.28 — $43 of it the MM-viability investigation (see above)
All-time Net-negative excluding the Mar/Apr incident windfalls
Phase 1 status Not met. Current-instrument-set families verdicted dead (MR held).

Strategy Type Evolution (Mar → Apr → May)

Type Mar Apr May Verdict
MarketMaking -$3.78 ERROR -$0.71, $63K vol ETH marginal +, BTC − Structurally unviable (spot BTC/ETH)
MeanReversion +$2.29 +$1.59 v19 all-green, small n HELD — live-positive, unfalsifiable offline
TrendFollowing -$0.44 +$0.90 net-negative all variants Dead — structural R:R
StatsArb +$1.02 -$3.43 near-flat Parked
AdaptiveDirectional paper, control-beat (small n) dead by TF arm Routes a dead + an unprovable edge

The Apr "MM volume validation" story dissolved under May's rigorous backtest — it was within the adverse-selection ceiling, not edge. MR is the one Apr thread that survived: its offline picture is uninformative (backtest blind to its entries), and live stayed positive. The lesson cuts both ways — the methodology kills in-sample artifacts (MM) and protects signals the backtest structurally can't see (MR).