Is a 30% win rate profitable?
It can be, if the winning trades are large enough. Profitability depends on two numbers together: the win rate and the payoff ratio, which is the average win divided by the average loss. This page works through the math, then checks it against 33,251 closed trades from one systematic crypto futures strategy that wins about 30% of the time.
The break-even formula
A strategy breaks even when its wins and losses cancel out: win rate × average win = loss rate × average loss. Rearranged, the break-even win rate is 1 / (1 + payoff ratio).
| Payoff ratio | Break-even win rate |
|---|---|
| 1x | 50.0% |
| 2x | 33.3% |
| 3x | 25.0% |
| 5x | 16.7% |
| 6.3x (this strategy) | 13.7% |
At a 1:1 payoff, a trader has to win more than half the time. At 6.3x, the line sits at 13.7%.
The real numbers
Over 33,251 trades the strategy won 30.3% of the time, with an average win of +19.2% and an average loss of -3.0%. That is a payoff ratio of 6.3x, and an actual win rate 2.2 times the break-even level.
By market, win rates ranged from 18% to 43%, and 134 of 134 markets finished positive. That includes 18 markets that won fewer than 1 trade in 4, all of them positive. The lowest, SIREN, won 18% of its trades.
Where the large winners come from
Two rules create the gap between wins and losses. Every trade has a fixed stop, so losses stay small: the median loss was 3.1% and none went past 4.1%. There is no take-profit, so a winning trade stays open until the signal reverses. Winners were held for a median of 7.1 days, losers for 13 hours.
The low win rate is the cost of that design, because many trades stop out before a trend develops. The best 5% of trades produced 66% of gross profit, so a rule that cut winners early would remove the trades that pay for the losses.
The hard part
A 30% win rate means about 7 losses in every 10 trades, and 110 of 134 markets went through a run of 10 losses or more (see how many losing trades in a row is normal). The math only pays a trader who keeps taking the trades through those streaks.
About the data
Every figure on this page is computed from AlphaFeed's closed trades: 33,251 trades across 134 crypto perpetual futures markets on 1-hour bars, from 2020 to October 2026. Returns are the percentage gained or lost on each trade, losing trades included. The numbers update as new trades close.
This is research on one systematic strategy and is not financial advice. Past results do not predict future ones, and leveraged futures can lose more than the money put in.
The full results are on the record, with each market on the markets page. New trades, winners and losers, are posted in the free AlphaFeed Telegram channel.