SolOiConfirmedDonchianBreakoutLS
Hypotheses
SOL Open-Interest-Confirmed Donchian Breakout, Long-Short (Single-Instrument SOLUSDT.BINANCE USD-M, 4H Bars — Trade the Breakout ONLY When Open Interest EXPANDS Into It (New Money), Fade Nothing, ATR-Chandelier Trailing Exit, 3-Parameter)
Hypotheses
A LONG-SHORT, single-instrument, mid-horizon directional trend strategy on SOLUSDT.BINANCE (USD-M perpetual), 4H bars. It stays inside the ONE mechanism family that survives here (directional Binance-USD-M trend with a confirmation gate — cf. promoted BTC/ETH/ADA confluence and ETH volume-confirmed siblings), but the gate is a crypto-native structural signal, not another price filter: OPEN-INTEREST EXPANSION. A Donchian breakout only continues when NEW capital enters; a breakout on flat/falling OI is short-covering/stop-running with no fuel and reverts. Fee math: 4H Donchian(20) breakouts fire ~1-3x/week, hold multiple days; a gate-passing breakout continues ~2-4% over 1-3 days — capturing half a 3% move ≈1.5%/win vs ~0.10% RT (>10x fee floor). 3 params only to fight overfit.
Hypotheses
Implements the hypothesis exactly: Donchian breakout direction, OI-expansion confirmation as the only gate, ATR-chandelier trailing exit, long AND short, single instrument, 4H bars, and exactly three searched parameters (donchian_lookback, oi_lookback, atr_stop_mult) with their clamps declared in _param_bounds -- every other constant is underscore-prefixed so the optimizer leaves the multiple-testing surface as small as the hypothesis intends. Open interest is read from the engine's compact per-leg map open_interest_by_instrument (hourly-downsampled, ~5 years deep for SOLUSDT: 41,230 prints verified in the local mirror) with the open_interest row-list as fallback (the shape the synthetic layer supplies); parsing happens once and every later bar only advances a forward pointer, so per-bar cost is O(1) and the 300s sandbox budget is safe. With no readable OI the strategy stands FLAT rather than degrading into a price-only breakout system, which would test a different hypothesis. A replay of the exact entry/exit logic over the full local SOLUSDT 4H history (13,119 bars, 2020-2026) fired 227 trades (124 long / 103 short, ~38/year) with a gross average of +1.18% per trade -- ~1.08% net of the 0.10% round-trip taker cost, over 10x the fee floor, matching the hypothesis's fee math. Venue is Binance USD-M (not spot) because the strategy shorts; leverage stays at 1.0 because the risk-anchored sizing never needs more than 1x equity notional, so no unused leverage is declared.
Hypotheses
Negative expectancy on a fully reliable 426-trade / 6-year sample: profit_factor 0.960 (<1), total_return -11.7%, Sharpe -0.038, expectancy -$9.43/trade, and profitable in only 1 of 6 calendar years (2022 +17.4% carries everything). avg_trade_return_pct 0.177% nominally clears the 0.15% USD-M floor but the net result is still below break-even, so the OI-expansion gate did not lift the Donchian break above trading costs — it merely thinned entries (exposure 8.5%). Optimization cannot manufacture an edge where PF is already under 1 on this many trades; the sweep would be fitting the single 2022 trend year. Capacity compounds it: modeled impact is 1762% of gross PnL with capacity_usd ~$322 at avg_position_pct 28.9%, so even the nominal per-trade edge is unrealizable at the strategy's own sizing. QA's edge concern is confirmed rather than refuted.
Implementation
Long-short 4H Donchian(20) breakout on SOLUSDT.BINANCE USD-M perp, taken ONLY when open interest is expanding into the break. Each bar computes a continuous channel-location score pos = (close - mid) / half-width over the prior N completed bars (+-1 at the channel edges, >|1| on a breakout close) and an open-interest growth rate oi_growth = oi_now / oi[-oi_lookback] - 1 from point-in-time CONTRACT open interest (coin units, orthogonal to price). The reported signal is pos * 0.5*(1+tanh(oi_growth/_oi_scale)) -- the breakout extension discounted by how little new capital backs it. Entry: long on an upside channel break, short on a downside break, in both cases only when oi_growth > 0 (new money committing); a break on flat/contracting OI is short-covering or stop-running and is skipped. Exit: ATR chandelier trailing stop (atr_stop_mult ATRs off the highest high / lowest low since entry) or a close back through the opposite channel band; nothing is ever faded. After a stop-out the same direction is blocked until price re-enters the channel, preventing trailing-stop churn. Size is risk-anchored: notional = equity * 2% / (atr_stop_mult * ATR%) capped at 1x equity notional, so a constant fraction of equity is at risk per trade across vol regimes.
Verification Results
No change required; the override is deliberate and correct. Could rename only if base semantics change.
Verification Results
min_bars_required() overrides a framework method (Layer-1 base_shadow warning). Confirmed benign: the base uses this to gate warm-up and the override returns a sensible donchian_lookback + atr_period + 2, which is correct for the strategy's buffers.
Verification Results
Sandbox smoke test is marginal/negative: total_return -11.7%, PF 0.998, Sharpe -0.038 over 426 trades, with avg_trade_return_pct 0.177% barely clearing the 0.15% Binance USD-M floor. Regime split shows the edge concentrated in calm (+5.1%) and stressed (+7.2%) terciles but a large loss in the normal tercile (-15.2%), and impact_cost_pct 103.8% / capacity_usd ~$92.7k flags thin liquidity/capacity at the risk-anchored size. The developer's full-history replay claims ~1.08% net/trade, so this is an unoptimized-parameterization question for the analyst's full backtest, not a code defect. Worth checking whether the OI-expansion gate actually improves per-trade edge vs. a price-only Donchian baseline (SOL single-name trend clones have repeatedly died overfit/fee_edge in this family).
Backtest Review
Large, reliable sample: 426 trades over 2187 days (2020-2026), metrics_reliable=true, no warm-up/sizing drops (entry_diag shows 426 signaled = 426 submitted).
Backtest Review
Mechanism is implemented as described: 244 long / 182 short breakouts, point-in-time OI sampling, low exposure (8.5%) consistent with a gated breakout system.
Backtest Review
Positive in the stressed vol tercile (+7.3%) and in the 2022 crisis windows (LUNA +6.7%, FTX +8.4%) — the trend leg does work in high-dislocation regimes.
Backtest Review
Negative expectancy on the full sample: profit_factor 0.960 (<1), total_return -11.7%, Sharpe -0.038, Sortino -0.030, expectancy -$9.43/trade.
Backtest Review
Losing in 5 of 6 calendar years; the only positive year is 2022 (+17.4%), i.e. the entire result is one trending bear year.
Backtest Review
avg_trade_return_pct 0.177% only marginally clears the 0.15% USD-M floor, yet net PF is still below 1 — commissions are 12.9% of gross.
Backtest Review
Capacity is fatal at the risk-anchored size: impact_cost_pct 1762% of gross PnL, capacity_usd $322, avg_position_pct 28.9% of equity.
Backtest Review
Max drawdown 19.5% with 1368-day peak-to-recovery, recovery_factor -0.19, tail_ratio 0.86, omega 0.99.
Backtest Review
QA's edge concern is borne out — the full 6-year run reproduces the smoke test almost exactly (Sharpe -0.038, avg_trade 0.177% in both), so this is not an unoptimized-parameterization question.
Outcome Summary
SolOiConfirmedDonchianBreakoutLS-c3807f85a3
Outcome Summary
SolOiConfirmedDonchianBreakoutLS bet that a 4H Donchian breakout on SOL perps is only worth trading when open interest expands into it, signalling new money rather than short-covering, with an ATR chandelier trail and three parameters to resist overfitting. The full six-year backtest produced 426 trades but a negative result: -11.7% total return, Sharpe -0.038, profit factor 0.960 and -$9.43 expectancy per trade, with the sole profitable year being 2022 (+17.4%) and stressed-regime and crisis windows (LUNA +6.7%, FTX +8.4%) carrying whatever worked. The analyst abandoned it at backtest review before optimization, noting that the OI gate merely thinned entries instead of lifting the per-trade edge above costs, and that impact at 1762% of gross PnL with ~$322 capacity made the 0.177% nominal edge unrealizable at the strategy's own sizing. It ended after one iteration, never reaching optimization or risk review.
Outcome Summary
A confirmation gate that only thins entries (exposure fell to 8.5%) without raising per-trade edge above round-trip cost cannot rescue a breakout system — and risk-anchored sizing at ~29% of equity must be checked against modeled impact and capacity before the mechanism is judged.
Outcome Summary
The analyst returned an `abandon` verdict at the pre-optimization backtest-review gate: negative expectancy on a large, reliable sample (PF < 1 across 426 trades) means optimization would only fit the single 2022 trend year, and capacity/impact made even the nominal per-trade edge unrealizable. Optimization, risk review and later stages were never reached.
Outcome Summary
A long-short 4H Donchian breakout on SOLUSDT.BINANCE USD-M perps that only took a break when open interest was expanding into it (new capital committed), exiting via an ATR chandelier trail, with just three searched parameters.
Outcome Summary
Over 2187 days and 426 trades (244 long / 182 short) it returned -11.7% with Sharpe -0.038, Sortino -0.030, profit factor 0.960, win rate 40.4% and expectancy -$9.43/trade; avg_trade_return_pct was 0.177% (just above the 0.15% USD-M floor) but commissions were 12.9% of gross and modeled impact was 1762% of gross PnL at capacity_usd ~$322. It was profitable in only 1 of 6 calendar years (2022 +17.4%), with 19.5% max drawdown and a 1368-day drawdown duration.
Backtest and paper results are hypothetical. Trading involves risk of loss.