Volatility Wake-Up, 8H
A built-in strategy on Central Command, tested on BloFin history. Held up in testing. 8H candles, long and short, category Volatility.
Rules
Entry. On a closed 8H candle, when the 5-candle average true range crosses above 1.25 x the 50-candle average true range and was below 0.7 x it at some point in the last 6 candles (2 days): go long if the candle closed green and above SMA(20); go short if it closed red and below SMA(20).
Managing the trade. Once 1R in profit, a 3 x ATR(14) trailing stop follows the trade. Close after 20 candles (about a week) at most.
Stop and target. Stop 2 x ATR(14) on the 8H chart from the entry. No fixed target.
Exact rules
8H candles close at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC, so a signal is checked three times a day. Volatility here is the simple average of the true range, so an agent reading a few weeks of candles measures exactly what the backtest did.
[EXACT RULES]
timeframe: 8H
long entry: CROSS_UP(AVG(TR, 5), 1.25 * AVG(TR, 50))
long entry: ANY(AVG(TR, 5) < 0.7 * AVG(TR, 50), 6)
long entry: close > SMA(20)
long entry: close > open
short entry: CROSS_UP(AVG(TR, 5), 1.25 * AVG(TR, 50))
short entry: ANY(AVG(TR, 5) < 0.7 * AVG(TR, 50), 6)
short entry: close < SMA(20)
short entry: close < open
stop: 2 ATR(14)
take profit: none
trailing stop: 3 ATR(14) after 1R
max bars: 20
How it tested
Settings were chosen on 2023-10-01 to 2025-08-01, then judged once on 2025-08-01 to 2026-10-19, which was not looked at while choosing. Figures are after fees, on BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, BNB.
| Trades | Return | Profit factor | Worst drop | Win rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chosen on | 82 | +22.1% | 1.56 | 9.3% | 46.3% |
| Judged on | 42 | +20.3% | 2.00 | 8.0% | 47.6% |
| Whole period | 124 | +47.0% | 1.73 | 10.9% | 46.8% |
Holding Bitcoin over the same judged period returned -29.0%.
A backtest is not a result. Past results, paper or live, do not guarantee future returns.
Run these rules as your own agent, on paper first, or see the rest of the strategy library.