Stratsemble
Preparation · Stage 2 of 5 — Test
XRP · XRPCrypto

Does the RSI Reversion strategy beat buy & hold on XRP? (XRP · backtested honestly)

RSI measures how stretched recent gains are versus losses on a 0-100 scale — a gauge of stretch, not a prediction of a turn.

Lagged buy & hold2021-10-28 → 2026-10-27 · 1,826 barsCosts & slippage onvs Buy & HoldHypothetical · not advice
Total return
-2.2%
Buy & hold +24.4%
vs Buy & Hold
-26.7 pts
lagged the benchmark
Max drawdown
-52.8%
Sharpe 0.17 · 10 trades
The honest read

Over this period, RSI Reversion on XRP returned -2.2%, while simply buying and holding returned +24.4% — it lagged buy & hold by 26.7 points, with a worst drawdown of -52.8%. It traded 10 times and sat in cash about 76% of the time. It's a mechanism you test.

What this settles — and the next dig

It lagged buy & hold over this window — that's a result, and a backtest you can kill for free just did its job. Re-tuning this same idea until it looks better only adds another shot at looking good by luck, so the honest next move is a fresh one: test a different strategy on XRP, or build your own — free. Most ideas die cheaply right here, and that's exactly how the rare one that holds up gets found.

Or stop here — walking away from an idea that didn't beat simply holding is a result, not a failure.

Interactive

Run it yourself

Change the parameters and the window, then re-run — no account needed.

Change the rules? Open the RSI Reversion rules on XRP in the no-code builder — the same rules tested here — and make them your own.

Open in the builder →
Worked example

Two real trades from this backtest

Shown at the modeled fills — entries at the next open; a stop at its level, or at that day's open if the day opened past it; a target at its level; costs on. A single trade is never a signal and says nothing about the next one — not the best or worst, a middling winner and a middling loser among the completed trades.

10 trades total — 6 winners, 4 losers (60% won). Below is one of each, not a scoreboard.

  1. Entry. A long entry fired; filled at the next open on 2025-10-11 at $2.36 — never the signal bar's own close.
  2. Held. 84 daily bars.
  3. Exit. Exited on 2026-01-03 at $2.01 (the exit rule fired (filled at the next open)).
  4. Result. -15.06% after costs.

The worst single trade in this whole test reached -45.43%.

  1. Entry. A long entry fired; filled at the next open on 2022-11-10 at $0.3332 — never the signal bar's own close.
  2. Held. 63 daily bars.
  3. Exit. Exited on 2023-01-12 at $0.3738 (the exit rule fired (filled at the next open)).
  4. Result. +12.11% after costs.

Trading costs + slippage (0.10%) are already deducted from every figure above. One trade is never the edge — it's the whole distribution (the win rate, the losers, the reality-check) that matters; this just makes the mechanics concrete. It describes the past; it is not a prediction.

Put this honest verdict on your site

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.

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The Proving Ground

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Test · the proof
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Stress-test · the reality check
A great backtest is the easiest thing to fool yourself with.

Put a survivor through the reality check — is the edge curve-fit to the past, or does it hold up? The honest way to tell a pattern from luck.

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an honest backtest — real costs on, measured against simply buying & holding

How to read this
  • • The strategy line is RSI Reversion on XRP; the dashed line is simply buying and holding XRP. 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.
What this is — and isn't

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. We 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

See what actually beats buy & hold — most don't, here are the rare few that do →

Indicator and strategy names identify the published rule being tested; no affiliation with, or endorsement by, any person or trademark owner is implied.