Trend breakout for Bitcoin and Ethereum
High Tide trades the big moves in Bitcoin and Ethereum on the hourly chart. When price closes above its highest level of the last four or eight days it buys. When it closes below the lowest it sells short. Then it holds on, trailing a stop behind the best close, so a strong trend can run for weeks.
That is the whole idea. Trend following loses small most of the time while it waits for the few moves that pay for everything else.
How it trades
Buys hourly closes above the 96-bar or 192-bar high. Sells short below the low. Two independent systems per coin.
Initial stop 4 × ATR, target 20 × ATR. The stop then trails behind the best close.
One position per system, six open at most. Risk is a fixed percentage of equity measured to the initial stop.
A volatility filter, new in v3.20, stands aside while Bitcoin's daily volatility sits in the top 20% of the past year. Blow-off tops and crashes are where breakouts whip back and forth. Open trades carry on being managed as normal.
No grid. No martingale. No averaging down. A stop loss and a take profit on every trade.
What the backtest shows
MT5 Strategy Tester on IC Markets data, 1 April 2018 to 30 September 2026, £5,000 start, 0.30% risk per trade, volatility filter on.
Net profit: +£9,968 (£5,000 → £14,968)
Return: 13.8% a year
Max drawdown: 11.0% equity · 10.1% balance
Profit factor: 1.49
Trades: 1,774 · around four a week
Win rate: 37%
Positive years: 9 out of 9
Hypothetical results produced by the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester on historical data. Not live trading. Past performance, simulated or real, is not a reliable indicator of future results.
What to expect
Six trades in ten lose. The average win is about 2.7 times the average loss, so a handful of big trends each year carry the result. 64% of months were positive in testing. The worst rolling twelve months came in at −0.4%.
Every calendar year was positive in the test, from +3% in 2021 to +37% in 2020. Both coins make money in both directions.
It does well when crypto trends. It struggles through long sideways markets. You will sit through flat spells, so size it as something you can leave alone.
What you need
MetaTrader 5, attached to a BTCUSD H1 chart.
A broker carrying BTCUSD and ETHUSD, on a hedging or netting account.
Server clock GMT+2 or GMT+3, which is the New York close.
A low-spread, low-commission account. Costs come straight out of the result.
A VPS if you want it running while your own machine is off.
What you get
HighTide_v3.20.ex5
Two set files: one for running it on its own, one for the portfolio risk setting
The summary sheet and the full manual
Free updates, plus email support from me
Trading carries risk and you can lose money. Test on a demo account first. Only trade with money you can afford to lose.
