Factor-Signal / Beta-Expression Split: Estimate the Crypto Trend on BTC (Cleanest Proxy) and EXPRESS It on a ~1.8-Beta Alt Perp (NEARUSDT.BYBIT, 2H Bars, Always-In Long-Short, No Gate, No Supplementary Feed)

A SINGLE-LEG, always-in, long-short directional strategy on BYBIT linear perpetuals that deliberately SEPARATES where the signal is MEASURED from where the risk is EXPRESSED. The trend of the crypto market factor is estimated ONLY on BTCUSDT.BYBIT (deepest book, highest signal-to-noise, smallest idiosyncratic component); the resulting sign is traded ONLY in NEARUSDT.BYBIT, a high-beta (~1.6-2.2 vs BTC on daily returns) large-cap L1 perp with 4.94 years of 2H history on Bybit (2021-10-11 -> today, ~21.6k bars) and ZERO prior experiments in this factory. NEAR is never used to generate direction - only for volatility-scaled sizing and the catastrophic stop. BTC is data-only: no position is ever opened in it, so this is a one-leg book (no multi-leg daily-MTM marking exposure, which has flagged four consecutive multi-leg runs). WHY THIS IS NOT ANOTHER TSMOM/DUAL-TF CLONE (lesson 112): the claim is not that a proven template ports to a new ticker. The claim is economic, about the ratio of GROSS MOVE to FIXED COST. Exchange fees are a percentage of NOTIONAL, so leverage cannot improve the move-to-fee ratio (it scales both). BETA CAN: at the same notional and the same 0.11% Bybit round trip, a +1.0% BTC factor move prints ~+1.8% on NEAR. Expressing an unchanged signal on a higher-beta instrument is the only lever that raises per-trade gross capture without raising per-trade cost - precisely the factory's #1 cause of death (499 fee_edge abandons). The cost is that NEAR carries idiosyncratic variance BTC does not, so ex-ante Sharpe should be roughly corr(NEAR,BTC) ~0.7-0.8 times the BTC-native Sharpe while per-trade NET edge roughly doubles. That trade-off - lower Sharpe, materially higher after-fee per-trade edge - IS the hypothesis, and it is falsifiable on exactly that number. DELIBERATELY UNGATED (lesson 130): no regime filter, no volatility gate, no volume confirmation, no dual-timeframe confluence, no funding/OI/taker/liquidation feed, no calendar window. Always long or short; flat only after a catastrophic stop, and only until the BTC sign next changes. No gated variant is pre-registered. SELECTION CHOICES STATED EXPLICITLY (lesson 122 - no parameter-count claim is made): (a) VENUE = BYBIT: 0.2% of 3162 experiments vs a >=5% target, plumbing already validated by completed backtests (not a virgin venue per lesson 103), and the only under-represented venue supplying multi-year SUB-DAILY history (Hyperliquid's ~5000-candle cap gives ~7 months at 1h and would die for insufficient history). (b) INSTRUMENT = NEAR: the mechanism needs a high-beta, high-correlation, liquid, long-history alt; NEAR is a top-50 L1 dominated by the BTC factor (so a BTC-measured signal is the right signal for it) at ~1.8x amplitude. ATOM/ICP/ALGO/APT are admissible substitutes on the same filter - the choice is beta/liquidity/history, not a backtest sweep. (c) TIMEFRAME = 2H execution with a ~10-day signal lookback, so the mechanism yields 200-350 independent bets over 4.94 years while holds stay ~5-8 days (~2 round trips/month).