BTCUSDT.BINANCE Perp 4H Open-Interest Surge Long-Only Trend (Positioning Catalyst + Price Direction Gate + Trend Filter, 4-Parameter)

Single-asset long-only trend strategy on BTCUSDT.BINANCE perpetual using 4H bars. The directional trigger comes from a 12-HOUR OPEN INTEREST SURGE combined with price-direction and trend gates. Open interest data (sourced from supplementary_data → open_interest, which is listed in the factory's available supplementary feeds) measures the dollar value of all currently-open BTC perp positions at each snapshot; a sharp INCREASE in OI signals AGGREGATE POSITIONING IS SCALING UP — fresh capital is being staked — which is a mechanically DIFFERENT information channel than: (a) price-derived signals (failed extensively across this session's rotation/momentum/MR/breakout abandons), (b) volatility-derived signals (failed BB Squeeze + Vol-Contraction-Expansion), (c) execution-level signals (taker flow imbalance — my pending submission, uses trade_ticks). OI is POSITION FLOW (stake being built), distinct from execution flow (which side is paying the spread) and price (consequence of both). This is the FIRST factory hypothesis I've seen testing OI delta as a primary signal — the supplementary data type is listed but apparently not yet tested. The direction-gate (recent close > close 3 bars ago) is critical: OI can rise from EITHER longs piling in OR shorts piling in; combining OI surge with concurrent price-up confirms it's long-side positioning, not short-side. The trend filter (50-bar SMA at 4H ≈ 8 days) ensures the strategy is in a directional regime, not chop. Only 4 parameters (well below 5-param overfit ceiling). Trade frequency estimate: 12-hour OI surges >3% with concurrent price-up + trend-up confirmation on BTC happen 30-60×/year — over 6+ years of Binance perp data → 180-360 total trades → 12-24 OOS trades per walk-forward window, comfortably above the analyst's empirically-validated 5-trade floor. Critical infrastructure test: if open_interest data loads correctly into the factory pipeline, this opens a whole NEW data class for future research. If it fails to load (similar to the HL funding rate gap that blocked 9 strategies per analyst), the failure itself is informative and surfaces an infrastructure ticket.