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Golden cross on the top-20 coins, 2020–2025: what the backtest showed

On Binance spot in 2020–2025 the daily SMA 50/200 golden cross made money on 9 of 19 large coins and beat simply holding on only 3 of the 12 that rose; 15 of its runs fell more than 80% from a peak. On perpetual futures the same rule did worse on every coin.

14 October 2026updated 15 October 20265 min read

Six headline numbers: 9 of 19 coins in profit on spot, 3 of 12 rising coins beaten, 15 of 19 drawdowns deeper than 80%, 44 of 124 trades in profit, 19 of 19 coins worse on perpetuals with funding, 47,219 USDT of funding on the ETH perpetual — One rule, 20 coins, six years — every number is from the runs below

Setup

Rule: long while the daily SMA 50 is above the daily SMA 200 — entered at the golden cross, or on the first bar once the averages are warmed up if 50 is already above 200 — and flat after the death cross. No stop, no target, one position.
Coins: the 20 coins with the highest Binance USDT-M turnover in the 30 days before 2021-01-01, picked by the platform as of that date. 19 of them have spot history on the platform; EOS, delisted since, does not.
Market and period: Binance spot, 4h candles from which the daily averages are built, 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01. For comparison, the same rule on Binance USDT-M perpetuals at 1x.
Costs: 95% of equity per trade, 0.05% fee and 0.05% slippage on each side, fills at the next bar's open, 10,000 USDT per coin. Funding is charged on perpetuals.
Runs: one strategy — spot #159–#177, perpetuals with funding #119–#138 and with funding off #139–#158. Nothing was tuned.

Golden cross vs Buy & Hold

Dot plot of the golden cross return against Buy & Hold for each of the 19 coins on spot, log scale — Teal — the cross, indigo — holding the same coin over the same run

Holding won on 9 of the 12 coins that rose. The cross got ahead on ADA, ETC and THETA, each on the back of one trade opened in 2020 — THETA's, opened on 2020-07-19, made +2,088.74%. On coins that collapsed it lost less than holding on 6 of 7: FIL -85.79% against -99.20%.

Backtest

Golden Cross 50/200 daily — top-20 study

BTCUSDT · 4h · Spot · 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01

Return: +529.12%
Max drawdown: 57.11%
Sharpe: 0.96
Win rate: 66.7%
Trades: 6

Open the report →

BTC on spot: +529.12% for the cross, +859.56% for holding

Backtest

Golden Cross 50/200 daily — top-20 study

BNBUSDT · 4h · Spot · 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01

Return: +2,312.15%
Max drawdown: 76.23%
Sharpe: 1.12
Win rate: 57.1%
Trades: 7

Open the report →

BNB, the best run: +2,312.15% — against +4,795.10% for holding

Backtest

Golden Cross 50/200 daily — top-20 study

THETAUSDT · 4h · Spot · 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01

Return: +472.64%
Max drawdown: 90.59%
Sharpe: 0.80
Win rate: 33.3%
Trades: 6

Open the report →

THETA, the one big win over holding: +472.64% against +7.47%

When it made money

Timeline of all 124 spot trades of the 19 runs, coloured by outcome — 13 of 19 coins held nothing from February to December 2022

44 of 124 trades closed in profit, and the big ones came from one window: trades opened in 2020 won 12 of 16 — the five largest of the study among them. Trades opened in 2021 won 1 of 22, in 2022 — 1 of 9, and from 2023 on — 30 of 77: the averages turned late both ways.

Drawdowns

Max drawdown of each of the 19 spot runs, with a line at 80% — The shallowest drawdown was BTC, 57.11%

The trend filter did not keep the equity safe: 15 of 19 runs fell more than 80% from a peak. A 200-day average turns after the fall — by the death cross, much of a rally is already gone.

On perpetual futures

Each perpetual run with funding off and on, with the funding paid in USDT — Hollow — the same run with funding off, filled — with funding

The same rule on USDT-M perpetuals did worse than on spot on all 19 coins. A long on a perpetual pays funding while the market runs hot — exactly when the cross is in: funding cost more than fees and slippage together on all 20 coins and turned XRP and THETA into a loss. With funding off the perpetual runs mostly land close to spot — ETH +751.15% against +755.49% on spot.

Backtest

Golden Cross 50/200 daily — top-20 study

ETHUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01

Return: +358.00%
Max drawdown: 74.47%
Sharpe: 0.74
Win rate: 66.7%
Trades: 6

Open the report →

ETH perpetual with funding: +358.00%, 47,219 USDT of funding paid

Backtest

Golden Cross 50/200 daily — top-20 study

ETHUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2020-01-01 → 2026-01-01

Return: +751.15%
Max drawdown: 62.47%
Sharpe: 0.93
Win rate: 66.7%
Trades: 6

Open the report →

The same ETH perpetual run with funding off: +751.15%

What this test does not show

"Top-20" is Binance futures turnover on 2021-01-01, not market cap. The platform holds every perpetual since 2020, delisted ones included, so the ranking does not depend on which spot pairs were loaded; but the date is a year into the window, so 2020 is seen knowing which coins became popular by its end.
The averages need about 200 days of history inside the window. The first trades come in July–August 2020, and much later for coins listed in late 2020 (GRT's first is in November 2021); Buy & Hold counts from the first candle, those months included.
Spot and perpetual history do not always start together. THETA's spot history here starts on 2020-01-01, its perpetual from May 2020, so the two runs of one coin can cover different months.
One rule, one set of parameters, one period — a record of what happened, not a test for an edge.

All 20 coins

Coin	Spot	Spot Buy & Hold	Max drawdown	Trades	Perpetual, with funding	Funding paid, USDT
BNB	+2,312.15%	+4,795.10%	76.23%	7	+1,795.23%	9,727
TRX	+422.74%	+1,527.29%	87.26%	6	+216.39%	10,476
ETH	+755.49%	+1,170.25%	62.35%	6	+358.00%	47,219
BTC	+529.12%	+859.56%	57.11%	6	+200.45%	22,119
XRP	+14.83%	+824.74%	90.84%	9	-53.06%	7,297
ADA	+265.50%	+168.81%	84.86%	6	+52.59%	45,321
BCH	+62.79%	+166.70%	81.60%	8	+11.88%	4,774
XLM	-56.14%	+100.12%	88.48%	8	-88.59%	7,568
ETC	+122.90%	+90.90%	88.38%	7	+51.56%	9,360
LTC	-51.82%	+81.22%	92.55%	8	-82.13%	10,499
LINK	-9.95%	+53.61%	85.88%	7	-75.44%	12,333
THETA	+472.64%	+7.47%	90.59%	6	-12.73%	37,025
AAVE	-59.79%	-70.98%	77.12%	6	-66.67%	968
UNI	-87.22%	-81.36%	92.04%	10	-91.41%	1,342
COMP	-62.13%	-85.16%	91.25%	6	-75.06%	3,734
DOT	-85.10%	-94.68%	90.76%	6	-93.33%	1,996
GRT	-72.29%	-95.45%	83.75%	4	-78.26%	1,147
EGLD	-85.38%	-96.19%	92.52%	4	-90.02%	1,006
FIL	-85.79%	-99.20%	87.66%	4	-88.38%	722
EOS	—	—	—	—	-83.71%	3,597

Each return links to its run. Max drawdown and trades are for spot; EOS has no spot history on the platform.

Conclusion

As a buy signal on spot, the golden cross beat holding on 3 of the 12 coins that rose, each time thanks to a single trade opened in 2020.
What it did was step aside from collapses — it lost less than holding on 6 of 7 falling coins — at the price of giving back most of every rally.
On perpetuals the same rule did worse on every coin: for a long-only trend rule, funding was a larger cost than fees.

How a backtest like this is put together: what backtesting is.

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Setup

Golden cross vs Buy & Hold

When it made money

Drawdowns

On perpetual futures

All 20 coins

Conclusion

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