Golden Cross (50/200 SMA) — Disproof verdict

The "institutional" signal — financial media treats a 50-day crossing above the 200-day moving average as confirmation of a new bull market.

Verdict: dead — grade F, 0 of 2 markets survived, tested on BTCUSDT from 2023-05-16 to 2026-08-30.

At zero cost: -4.7%
With real costs (15bps + 2bps slippage): -5.2%
Out-of-sample: +0.0%
Buy and hold over the same window: +190.9% (the strategy is 196.1 points behind buy and hold)

Rules tested

strategy "Golden Cross (50/200 SMA)"  (long)
indicators:
  fast = sma(50)
  slow = sma(200)

entry: when fast crosses above slow
exit:  when fast crosses below slow
# fills next open · fees+slippage on · 70/30 OOS · deflated-Sharpe gate

How this was reconstructed

Literal: long on the golden cross, flat on the death cross. Note the 200-bar warmup consumes the first ~7 months of the window before any signal can fire.