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Fade the spike failed

Bet against a sudden price spike, expecting it to come back. Popular in backtests; the lab's paper grade lost on all 12 coins it tried.

Markets: Bitcoin price up down · every 15 minutes KXBTC15M · ETH 15M price up down · every 15 minutes KXETH15M · Solana 15 minutes · every 15 minutes KXSOL15M

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The lab's record

Paper, honest fills: lost on all 12 coins. Spikes on Kalshi mostly carried real information.

Money: Paper
Period: Jul to Oct 2026

Read the write-up

Pass mark

written before the first run

On a member's copy, a strategy cannot run until its pass mark is written down: minimum trades, cents a contract after fee, both halves positive, a cap on one day's share of profit, a loss-rate cap, and a judgement date. The verdict is computed only from fills made after the mark, so it can never be fitted to a result that already exists. The lab's own bar is the default.

The lab tested this shape

public numbers, 2026-10-26

The lab tested this shape. paper: 4 graded ledgers, 18,911 trades, -3.03¢ a contract weighted, 0 passed the bar.

Run	Market	Trades	¢ / contract	Thirds	Verdict
Fade the spike	SOL 15 minute	6,158	-3.03	-2.03 / -2.32 / -4.61	fail	read
Fade the spike	ETH 15 minute	6,081	-3.68	-2.36 / -4.1 / -4.52	fail	read
Fade the spike	BTC 15 minute	5,967	-2.41	-2.56 / -2.54 / -2.13	fail	read
Fade	BTC15M	705	-2.61	0.29 / -3.03 / -4.21	fail	read

Information, not a block. Rows marked real are from the public real-money table; the rest are paper ledgers from the lab's all-time grade. No live-lane settings or maker parameters are shipped.

Your paper result

Fills11

Win rate64%

¢ / contract-3.27

Touched, not filled0

Settled fills11 (7 won) · -36.0¢ net · 2026-10-31 to 2026-11-01
First half vs second half+7.00 on 5 · -11.83 on 6
Best single day's share of profit– (2 days with fills)

Scored only on settled fills, the way the lab's bars are. Export this strategy's orders (CSV)

Backtest

not run yet

Asks the same honest question of Kalshi's free history: at each minute's end inside the rule's window, would this order have rested, and would a real print have gone through its price before it expired? Decisions from one-minute candles, fills from the public trade tape, settlement from the recorded result, the series' maker fee. A best case: no queue position, no latency.

Rule

Declarative: Ping never runs code from a strategy file.

Kind: fade
Series: KXBTC15M, KXETH15M, KXSOL15M
Acts: 60 to 840 s before close
Price range: 1¢ to 99¢
Contracts: 1
Order life: 60 s
Max open: 2
spike cents: 12
lookback seconds: 30

Strategy file (TOML)

id = "fade_spike"
name = "Fade the spike"
series = [
    "KXBTC15M",
    "KXETH15M",
    "KXSOL15M",
]
description = "Bet against a sudden price spike, expecting it to come back. Popular in backtests; the lab's paper grade lost on all 12 coins it tried."
contracts = 1
order_life_seconds = 60
max_open = 2
cooldown_seconds = 0
pack = "core"

[gate]
seconds_before_close_min = 60
seconds_before_close_max = 840
max_price_cents = 99
min_price_cents = 1
min_contracts_offered = 1

[rule]
kind = "fade"

[rule.params]
spike_cents = 12
lookback_seconds = 30

[record]
status = "failed"
summary = "Paper, honest fills: lost on all 12 coins. Spikes on Kalshi mostly carried real information."
real_money = false
period = "Jul to Oct 2026"
link = "https://pondletter.com/kalshi-strategies/"

Paper orders

Placed (UTC)	Market	Side	Price	Status	Fill	Fee	Result	P&L
11-01 12:27	KXBTC15M-26NOV011230-80250	NO	92¢	open
11-01 12:18	KXBTC15M-26NOV011231-81750	NO	43¢	open
11-01 08:53	KXBTC15M-26NOV010856-78000	YES	43¢	filled	through	0¢	loss	-43.0¢
11-01 08:53	KXBTC15M-26NOV010856-81000	NO	88¢	expired
11-01 08:30	KXBTC15M-26NOV010841-78500	NO	94¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+6.0¢
11-01 06:13	KXBTC15M-26NOV010626-80250	YES	64¢	filled	through	0¢	loss	-64.0¢
11-01 02:33	KXBTC15M-26NOV010241-78750	YES	80¢	expired
11-01 01:18	KXBTC15M-26NOV010126-79750	NO	44¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+56.0¢
11-01 00:50	KXBTC15M-26NOV010056-79250	NO	49¢	filled	through	0¢	loss	-49.0¢
10-31 23:58	KXBTC15M-26NOV010011-81750	YES	77¢	filled	at price	0¢	win	+23.0¢
10-31 22:52	KXBTC15M-26OCT312256-81750	NO	78¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+22.0¢
10-31 18:23	KXBTC15M-26OCT311826-79000	NO	83¢	expired
10-31 17:59	KXBTC15M-26OCT311811-82000	NO	30¢	filled	through	0¢	loss	-30.0¢
10-31 17:01	KXBTC15M-26OCT311711-80250	YES	61¢	expired
10-31 16:08	KXBTC15M-26OCT311611-81500	NO	73¢	expired
10-31 11:00	KXBTC15M-26OCT311111-81250	NO	93¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+7.0¢
10-31 10:50	KXBTC15M-26OCT311056-79000	YES	36¢	expired
10-31 09:23	KXBTC15M-26OCT310926-79250	NO	48¢	expired
10-31 09:00	KXBTC15M-26OCT310911-78250	YES	37¢	expired
10-31 07:33	KXBTC15M-26OCT310741-81500	NO	66¢	expired
10-31 05:19	KXBTC15M-26OCT310526-78750	YES	81¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+19.0¢
10-31 04:38	KXBTC15M-26OCT310441-78500	NO	73¢	expired
10-31 03:15	KXBTC15M-26OCT310326-78500	NO	83¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+17.0¢
10-31 02:03	KXBTC15M-26OCT310211-81500	NO	84¢	expired