# Survivorship bias in crypto backtests, measured on 30 coins

> Survivorship bias in crypto backtests: buy & hold on today's coins made a median +29.61% since 2021; on the 30 coins you could pick then, -24.92%.

Research · Janorium · Published 2026-10-20  
Web page: https://janorium.com/articles/survivorship-bias-crypto-backtest

Backtest buy & hold from 2021 on today's coins and the median coin made +29.61%, the average +420.12%. On the 30 coins an investor could actually have picked on 2021-01-01 — six of them delisted since — the median coin returned -24.92% and the average +117.04%, less than bitcoin alone (+176.08%).

A backtest that starts in the past but takes its list of coins from today has already seen the ending: the coins that
collapsed and were delisted are missing, and the coins that became big are in. This is survivorship bias, one of the
traps listed in [what backtesting is](https://janorium.com/guides/what-is-backtesting). Here it is measured: the same buy & hold on two lists
of coins over the same five and three-quarter years.

## Two lists of coins

- **The 2021 list — what you could have bought.** The 30 Binance USDT-M perpetuals with the highest turnover in the 30
  days before 2021-01-01, picked by the platform as of that date (the "Take the symbols as of a past date" option of a
  new backtest), delisted coins included. Six of the 30 have been delisted since: EOS, WAVES, YFII, MKR, SXP and OMG.
- **Today's list — what a backtest built today sees.** Every perpetual that already traded on 2021-01-01 and that the
  platform still keeps current in October 2026. There are exactly 30: the 24 survivors of the 2021 list plus SOL, DOGE,
  NEAR, AXS, ATOM and RUNE — coins an investor could have bought in 2021, but that were not among its 30 most traded.

Why 30 and not the usual top 20: the 2021 top 20 lost only one coin to delisting (EOS), too few to measure anything,
and 30 is the most a point-in-time list on the platform takes. A wider net catches more dead coins: of the 78 USDT-M
perpetuals that traded on 2021-01-01, the platform's symbol registry shows 22 delisted since — 6 of the top 30, 16 of
the other 48.

**The test:** buy once with 95% of a 10,000 USDT account at the open of the second 4-hour bar of 2021 and hold until
2026-10-01, or until the last bar before a delisting. Perpetual futures at 1x, isolated margin, 0.05% fee and 0.05%
slippage per side, **funding switched off** so the run follows the coin's price as a spot holder would see it — the
delisted coins exist on the platform only as perpetuals (the callout below explains why funding is off). One strategy,
nothing tuned.

The average return across a list is also what splitting the money equally across its coins on day one would have made,
so the mean below reads as "an equal-weight basket, never rebalanced".

## The result

|                                          | Coins | Median return | Average return | Coins that lost money | Lost 80% or more |
| ---------------------------------------- | ----: | ------------: | -------------: | --------------------: | ---------------: |
| 2021 list, as of 2021-01-01              |    30 |       -24.92% |       +117.04% |                    16 |                8 |
| 2021 list without its six delisted coins |    24 |        +6.25% |       +151.95% |                    12 |                6 |
| Today's list                             |    30 |       +29.61% |       +420.12% |                    14 |                6 |

The same strategy over the same window looks very different depending on the list. On the coins you could have picked,
the typical coin lost a quarter of its value and the equal-weight basket made less than bitcoin alone. On today's list
the typical coin was up, and the basket made more than three and a half times as much as on the 2021 list.

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/722)**  
BTCUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +176.08% | 75.42% | 0.60 | 100.0% | 1 |

*Bitcoin, for reference: +176.08% — the 2021 basket made less, today's basket more*

## Where the gap comes from

**Dropping the dead coins moves the median from a loss to a gain.** Removing the six delisted coins alone lifts the
median from -24.92% to +6.25% and the average from +117.04% to +151.95%. Four of the six had lost money; together they
had a median of -71.44%.

**Refilling the list from today's winners does the rest.** The six coins that today's list adds were chosen, in effect,
by what happened after 2021: SOL made +6,971.27% and DOGE +1,725.20%. Without its single best coin, today's list still
averages +194.22% — the 2021 list without its best coin, BNB, averages +58.03%.

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/728)**  
SOLUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +6,971.27% | 96.57% | 1.20 | 100.0% | 1 |

*SOL, the best run of today's list: +6,971.27% — not among the 30 most traded coins on 2021-01-01*

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/723)**  
BNBUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +1,828.21% | 72.28% | 1.03 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BNB, the best run of the 2021 list: +1,828.21%*

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/729)**  
DOGEUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +1,725.20% | 92.93% | 0.78 | 100.0% | 1 |

*DOGE, another coin only today's list contains: +1,725.20%*

## How a delisted coin's run ends

A backtest cannot hold a coin that no longer trades. On the platform the run of a delisted perpetual ends at the last
bar of its archive, and the position is closed there at the market as end of data — at whatever price the coin had left.
The six delisted runs ended between 2022-04-12 (YFII) and 2025-12-05 (SXP).

Delisted does not always mean worthless: MKR ended at +167.10% and YFII at +11.21%. A token can leave an exchange
because it is swapped for a new one or simply because of thin trading, and the backtest records only the price on the
way out, not what a holder did next.

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/725)**  
OMGUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| -84.19% | 98.38% | 0.14 | 0.0% | 1 |

*OMG, delisted: -84.19% at its last bar on 2025-01-31*

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/726)**  
WAVESUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| -74.60% | 97.32% | 0.30 | 0.0% | 1 |

*WAVES, delisted: -74.60% at its last bar on 2024-06-11*

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/727)**  
MKRUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +167.10% | 91.12% | 0.70 | 100.0% | 1 |

*MKR, delisted with a profit: +167.10% at its last bar on 2025-09-08*

## Surviving is not the same as doing well

The worst run of both lists belongs to a survivor: SNX, still trading, -91.95%. Of the eight coins of the 2021 list that
lost 80% or more, only two were delisted — FIL, GRT, THETA, DOT, COMP and SNX are still listed and are in today's list
too. Every one of the 36 runs, bitcoin included, fell more than 70% from a peak at some point of the window.

**Backtest: [Buy & hold 1x perp, funding off — survivorship study](https://janorium.com/backtests/724)**  
SNXUSDT · 4h · Futures · 2021-01-01 → 2026-10-01

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| -91.95% | 97.95% | 0.07 | 0.0% | 1 |

*SNX, the worst run of both lists: -91.95%, and still listed*

> **What this test does not show**
>
> - **Funding is off on purpose.** With funding on — the same buy & hold, runs #654–#689 — a 1x isolated long held for
>   years was liquidated on 30 of the 36 coins, bitcoin included ([-80.19%](https://janorium.com/backtests/654)): funding drains an isolated
>   position's margin until the liquidation price rises to meet the market. That is a lesson about holding perpetuals,
>   not about survivorship, so the comparison uses price alone.
> - **One start date.** 2021-01-01 sits early in a bull market; another date gives other numbers, and maybe a
>   different gap.
> - **"Top 30" means Binance perpetual turnover, not market cap**, and today's list is limited to the 58 perpetuals the
>   platform keeps current. Some coins from 2021 still trade on Binance without current candles here (ZEC, XMR, DASH and
>   others), so they could not be in today's list.
> - **The ending price of a delisted coin is not a holder's final result.** A swap into a new token or a sale elsewhere
>   is outside the backtest.

## All 36 coins

| Coin  | 2021 list |        Today's list |                       Return | Max drawdown |
| ----- | :-------: | ------------------: | ---------------------------: | -----------: |
| SOL   |     —     |                 yes | [+6,971.27%](https://janorium.com/backtests/728) |       96.57% |
| BNB   |    yes    |                 yes | [+1,828.21%](https://janorium.com/backtests/723) |       72.28% |
| DOGE  |     —     |                 yes | [+1,725.20%](https://janorium.com/backtests/729) |       92.93% |
| TRX   |    yes    |                 yes |                   +1,088.86% |       72.41% |
| XRP   |    yes    |                 yes |                     +531.05% |       84.01% |
| NEAR  |     —     |                 yes |                     +258.23% |       94.96% |
| ETH   |    yes    |                 yes |                     +247.83% |       80.52% |
| AVAX  |    yes    |                 yes |                     +243.04% |       95.67% |
| BTC   |    yes    |                 yes |   [+176.08%](https://janorium.com/backtests/722) |       75.42% |
| MKR   |    yes    | delisted 2025-09-08 |   [+167.10%](https://janorium.com/backtests/727) |       91.12% |
| AXS   |     —     |                 yes |                     +108.66% |       99.50% |
| AAVE  |    yes    |                 yes |                      +82.59% |       92.22% |
| XLM   |    yes    |                 yes |                      +70.33% |       90.16% |
| UNI   |    yes    |                 yes |                      +68.22% |       94.06% |
| ETC   |    yes    |                 yes |                      +53.66% |       95.74% |
| ADA   |    yes    |                 yes |                      +34.82% |       95.09% |
| LINK  |    yes    |                 yes |                      +24.40% |       89.40% |
| YFII  |    yes    | delisted 2022-04-12 |                      +11.21% |       73.76% |
| BCH   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -11.90% |       93.35% |
| CRV   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -37.94% |       96.75% |
| RUNE  |     —     |                 yes |                      -38.82% |       98.14% |
| LTC   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -46.52% |       88.73% |
| VET   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -51.46% |       97.96% |
| ALGO  |    yes    |                 yes |                      -60.76% |       96.11% |
| ATOM  |     —     |                 yes |                      -67.77% |       96.54% |
| EOS   |    yes    | delisted 2025-05-21 |                      -68.28% |       96.28% |
| WAVES |    yes    | delisted 2024-06-11 |    [-74.60%](https://janorium.com/backtests/726) |       97.32% |
| EGLD  |    yes    |                 yes |                      -77.29% |       99.29% |
| COMP  |    yes    |                 yes |                      -80.09% |       97.42% |
| DOT   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -82.07% |       97.80% |
| THETA |    yes    |                 yes |                      -83.99% |       98.47% |
| OMG   |    yes    | delisted 2025-01-31 |    [-84.19%](https://janorium.com/backtests/725) |       98.38% |
| SXP   |    yes    | delisted 2025-12-05 |                      -86.89% |       98.50% |
| GRT   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -87.41% |       98.82% |
| FIL   |    yes    |                 yes |                      -90.95% |       99.19% |
| SNX   |    yes    |                 yes |    [-91.95%](https://janorium.com/backtests/724) |       97.95% |

Linked returns are saved runs. The others come from the same strategy re-run on the platform without saving it, with
the same settings — the eight saved runs match those re-runs to the cent. A delisted coin's date is its last bar.
Medians, averages and counts in this article are computed from these 36 returns.

## Conclusion

- On a list of coins taken from today, buy & hold since 2021 shows a median of +29.61% and an equal-weight average of
  +420.12%. On the list that existed on 2021-01-01 the same test shows -24.92% and +117.04%.
- More than half of the gap in the median comes from leaving out the six coins that were delisted; most of the gap in the
  average comes from adding the coins that only hindsight puts in the list, SOL and DOGE above all.
- Survivors fail too: the worst run of the study, SNX at -91.95%, is a coin that still trades.

To test without the bias, build the list as of the backtest's start date — the "Take the symbols as of a past date"
option does it — as in [the golden cross study on the top 20 of 2021](https://janorium.com/articles/golden-cross-top-20-crypto-2020-2025).
More on putting a test together: [how to backtest a crypto strategy](https://janorium.com/guides/how-to-backtest-a-crypto-strategy).