Daily Alpha Brief — 2026-07-22 — SIDEWAYS regime across majors

Bayesian crypto brief for 2026-07-22: SIDEWAYS regime, strategy performance, weight shifts, and quant-vs-crowd sentiment across 9 symbols.

TL;DR

• Dominant regime: SIDEWAYS (0 bullish / 1 bearish of 9 symbols).
• Top signal: post_shock_reversal on BTC raised 0.370 (0.20 → 0.57).
• Shadow portfolio: $744 (-25.65%), 0 open, 34% win rate.

Shadow portfolio value since inception (dashed line = $1,000 starting capital).

Current Bayesian reliability weights, averaged across the universe.

Detected regime per symbol (EMA200 + ADX); % = lead-strategy conviction.

🌐 Market Indices

Crowd reads fear at 39/100; BTC dominance 59.0% signals balanced.

🌐 Market Overview

Economic (FRED):

Stablecoin dominance 11.0% (risk-off, money fleeing crypto); yield curve regime Flat.

Funding Rates (contrarian — heavy positive = crowded longs to fade):

Economic Calendar: Next FOMC: in 7 days | Next CPI: in 21 days | position-size modifier 1.00×.

📊 Regime Analysis

Regime per symbol from EMA200 + ADX on daily candles, with the fusion signal.

The book is broadly bearish: 0 BULL / 1 BEAR of 9 symbols.

🔗 Correlation Signals

Stable pairs (r > 0.70): ETH/SOL: r=0.84 ✅ | BTC/ETH: r=0.84 ✅ | BTC/SOL: r=0.84 ✅ | SOL/DOGE: r=0.83 ✅ | ETH/DOGE: r=0.83 ✅ | BTC/DOGE: r=0.82 ✅

Index signals: BTC dominance NEUTRAL → no rotation; Fear & Greed contrarian NONE.

⚙️ Strategy Performance

Aggregate 7-day performance per strategy (replayed across the universe). Edge = win-rate × avg P&L per trade — the table is sorted by it.

All P&L figures normalized to a 100 USDT position size for comparability (not summed across symbols).

🧠 Bayesian Weight Shifts

BTC/USDT (SIDEWAYS):

Nearly all price-based strategies have zero trades in both windows (rule 1: hold within ±0.05 of current), so the only data-driven moves are on tsmom and post_shock_reversal. Tsmom has a borderline 5-trade sample with a terrible 20% win-rate and Sharpe of -1.77, triggering rules 2-3 for a reduction (cut to 0.16); in SIDEWAYS this momentum strategy also faces a regime headwind, reinforcing the cut. Post_shock_reversal shows strong 7d metrics (67% win, Sharpe 17.87, +162 pnl) in a mean-reversion-friendly SIDEWAYS regime, earning a modest raise per rule 4 and regime alignment (raised to 0.25). Bollinger gets a small SIDEWAYS regime nudge (+0.026) from its low base, while sentiment_strategy is held near its current weight given stable but mildly weak confluence (67%, near-neutral composite), with only a negligible trim to 0.60.

SUI/USDT (SIDEWAYS):

volume_spike is the clearest action item: 99 trades on 7d with only 25% win-rate, negative Sharpe (-0.65), and negative pnl triggers rule 2 (persistent underperformance), so I cut it sharply from 0.643 toward 0.30. post_shock_reversal has 83 7d trades with a wildly high Sharpe (11.29) and strong pnl (+471), but the 24h window shows 21% win-rate and near-zero pnl, suggesting the 7d figure may be distorted by a few large outlier wins; it is also a mean-reversion strategy well-suited to SIDEWAYS, so I raise it moderately to 0.55 rather than aggressively. bollinger, ema_cross, rsi_macd, tsmom, correlation_strategy, and macro_strategy all have fewer than 5 7d trades (most have zero), invoking rule 1 and keeping them near current weights; bollinger gets a tiny SIDEWAYS-regime nudge. walk_forward_ema has 9 trades and a positive Sharpe (3.01) but only 33% win-rate with a bad 24h print, so I trim slightly to 0.42. sentiment_strategy has weak coverage (2 sources, 50% confluence) warranting a small reduction from 0.468 to 0.44.

WIF/USDT (SIDEWAYS):

Bollinger is the dominant concern: 7d win_rate of 21% and Sharpe of -3.14 with negative pnl triggers rules 2 and 3 hard — despite SIDEWAYS regime favouring mean reversion, the data contradicts the prior (rule 6 conflict), so I cut it from 0.639 down to 0.38 rather than reward it. post_shock_reversal is the standout performer with 48 trades, 31% win-rate but an extraordinary Sharpe of 7.69 and +363 pnl, suggesting its wins are very large relative to losses; in a SIDEWAYS/post-shock regime this mean-reversion-family strategy earns a raise to 0.57 per rule 4 alignment. All zero-trade strategies (rsi_macd, ema_cross, tsmom, walk_forward_ema, correlation_strategy, macro_strategy) are held near or at current weights per rule 1 thin-data guard, with only minor nudges. sentiment_strategy is nudged slightly down from 0.466 to 0.44 given only 2-source coverage and 50% confluence, which reflects sparse and contradictory signals.

📡 Signal Outlook

💼 Shadow Portfolio

$1,000 USDT paper portfolio, 1% risk/trade, MEXC fees modelled. No real capital is deployed.

📡 Discourse Radar

Crowd-vs-quant sentiment from CryptoCompare news, crypto RSS, the macro feeds (FT / Fed / CNBC), and the Fear & Greed index. (Reddit retired — Responsible Builder Policy restrictions, 2026.)

• Fear & Greed: -0.50 (bearish crowd).
• Macro signal (FT/Fed/CNBC): +0.04 (neutral) — “Goldman Sachs creates private markets platform as rich investors seek the next SpaceX and Stripe”.

Most-talked alt: DOGE/USDT at +0.51 (bullish crowd lean).

📰 Today’s Key Reads

Curated from 3 sources monitored today:

🔴 Allbridge Core pauses protocol after $1.65 million flash loan exploit: onchain analysts — theblock — Score: -0.81

🟢 Bitmine expands Ethereum treasury to 5.78 million ETH, repurchases 5.5 million shares — theblock — Score: +0.75

⚪ Live markets: Bitcoin rises to five-week high near $67,000 on boosted hope for Clarity Act — coindesk — Score: +0.20

⚠️ These underperforming trades could yield big returns over next six months — cnbc_finance — Score: +0.19

⚠️ Goldman Sachs creates private markets platform as rich investors seek the next SpaceX and Stripe — cnbc_finance — Score: +0.17

Academic Footnote

Wen et al. (2022) — overreaction and short-term reversal in crypto.

Disclaimer

This is algorithmic analysis only, not financial advice.