Does the Moving Average Crossover strategy beat buy & hold on Bitcoin? (BTC · backtested honestly)
Go long while a fast moving average is above a slow one (a 'golden cross') and flat when it drops back below (a 'death cross'). A classic trend-following rule: it tries to hold the up-trends and step aside in down-trends. It lags turning points by design and tends to whipsaw in sideways markets.
Run it yourself
Change the parameters and the window, then re-run — no account needed.
A live badge that re-runs itself and links back here. Free to embed on any blog, newsletter or forum — it shows the honest result, beat or lagged.
<iframe src="https://stratsemble.com/embed/bitcoin-moving-average-crossover-backtest" width="360" height="252" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="Does the Moving Average Crossover strategy beat buy & hold on Bitcoin?"></iframe>- • The strategy line is Moving Average Crossover on Bitcoin; the dashed line is simply buying and holding BTC. Beating the dashed line is the whole point — many strategies don't.
- • Max drawdown is the worst peak-to-trough fall you'd have sat through. A higher return with a much deeper drawdown is not obviously better.
- • Every fill assumes next-open execution with costs & slippage on — no acting on prices you couldn't have known.
- • A small number of trades means a small sample. Treat a great-looking result on a handful of trades with suspicion.
This is a hypothetical backtest of a well-known mechanism on past data. It is not advice, not a prediction, and not a claim that the strategy works. I hold no funds and place no orders. The value here is the ability to test an idea honestly — see where it would have helped, and where it would have hurt — before you ever risk real money on your own broker.
How this is computed → · who's behind it · where a backtest fits