BTC RSI Pullback to 50 in a 4h Uptrend — 1h
Status: Regime entry: worked in one test window, not the other · Regime #2 · Listed 2026‑10‑14 Instruments: BTCUSDT perpetual only · Timeframe: 1h, trend read on the 4h · Direction: long only Frequency: ~154 trades/yr · Requires fees of 0.05%/side or less, plus real funding
Why it is in the regime section, not the library
It failed the six‑check bar. It is listed under the regime bar, which asks four things of one of the two test windows: a net profit after fees and funding, still a profit without the best trade, a result above 95% of 400 random‑entry runs with the same exit, and at least 20 trades. It clears all four from April 2023 to October 2026 (552 trades), narrowly, and in a way to understand before anything else: it made +9.2% where random entries with the same exit lost a median of 40.3%. It beat random entries by losing less.
Where it fails the full bar:
- Two windows: +5.4% from April 2020 to April 2023, but −10.0% without its best trade.
- Cross‑asset: ETH lost in both windows (−15.4%, −39.0%). BNB made +79.3% in 2020–23, no more than random entries did (89.5th percentile), and lost 10.5% in 2023–26.
- Drawdown: 68.2 summed points in 2020–23 and 20.8 in 2023–26, against a bar of 20.
This is the setup as it was put to us: buy every time RSI drops back to 50 on the lower timeframe while the higher timeframe is in an uptrend. It is the version that came closest. It came out of sweep #16, pre‑registered on 2026‑10‑12, as one of 24 window tests. With a 95th‑percentile bar, one or two of 24 would clear by luck alone. Two did: this one at the 98th percentile, and regime #1 at the 99.3rd.
The setup (compilable spec)
Market: crypto BTCUSDT perpetual, 1h trading timeframe. Longs only. Trend (4h, last closed bar):
EMA(20) > EMA(50). Entry (1h):RSI(14) crosses below 50. Exit: trailing stop 2×ATR(14) below the highest price since entry. Fees: 0.05%/side (Binance USDT‑M taker) · funding charged and credited at every settlement held through.
Evidence: two windows on Binance perpetual candles
| Window | Trades | PF | Return | Strip‑best | Sum DD | Account DD | Random‑entry percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2020 → Apr 2023 | 449 | 1.02 | +5.4% | −10.0% | 68.2 | 40.5% | 79.5th |
| Apr 2023 → Oct 2026 | 552 | 1.04 | +9.2% | +2.4% | 20.8 | 18.8% | 98th |
Returns are per‑trade percentages summed, like every return in the research log. Holding BTC made +351.6% and +194.0% over the same windows.
- Random entries, 2023–26: 400 runs of the same exit on random bars had a median of −40.3% and a 95th percentile of −0.6%. At 552 trades the round‑trip fees alone come to about 55 points, and a random entry pays them too. Drawn only from bars inside the same 4h uptrend, the median was −24.1% and the 95th percentile +11.0%, and the real run sits at the 94.3rd, just under the bar.
- Fees: at 0.1%/side it lost 46.0% in 2023–26 and 39.5% in 2020–23.
- Fills: at the next bar's open, +9.2% and +5.3%. No real change.
The record by year
| Year | 2020* | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trades | 147 | 155 | 104 | 165 | 174 | 150 | 106 |
| Return | +39.3% | −9.3% | −28.6% | +4.3% | −1.6% | +7.5% | +3.0% |
*2020 from April, 2026 through September. Each trade counts in the year it was entered.
- Its 2023–26 result is one quarter: April to June 2025 made +10.0%, and the other thirteen quarters netted −0.8%.
- Last high: March 2021, at +68.4% summed since April 2020. It has not been back. It ended September 2026 at +14.6%, 53.8 points below.
- Last twelve months (October 2025 to September 2026): 132 trades, −2.4%.
What the result depends on
The four neighbors sweep #16 pre‑registered, run after the listing decision as disclosure:
| Change | 2023–26 return | Strip‑best | Random‑entry percentile | 2020–23 return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSI level 45 instead of 50 | −43.3% | −50.9% | 42.5th | +30.9% |
| RSI level 55 | −47.3% | −54.5% | 39.5th | −49.6% |
| Uptrend = 4h close above EMA(50) | −8.5% | −15.2% | 90.8th | −5.0% |
| 3×ATR trail instead of 2× | +37.1% | +26.5% | 93rd | +1.0% |
None of the four clears the bar in 2023–26. Five points on the RSI level either way turns +9.2% into a loss of 43–47%. A result that moves that much on one parameter is more likely luck than an edge.
Before you adopt it
- Read it as the closest the classic multi‑timeframe RSI pullback came to working on crypto in our tests, not as an edge. It is small, it rests on one quarter, and it sits on one parameter value.
- It trades about three times a week. Adopting it watches BTCUSDT on the 1h chart and alerts every setup, about 150 a year.
- Paper‑trade it first, and only at a taker fee of 0.05% a side or less.
Every number here can be re‑run: npx tsx scripts/research/sweep16-rsi-midline-pullback.ts for
the windows and the null, and npx tsx scripts/research/regime-entries-sweep16.ts for the fee
stress, fills, neighbors and the year‑by‑year record.