Martingale · BTC/USDT

Double down after every loss. Every closed trade is a winner by construction — that is what makes it dangerous.

Total return

86.8%

10,000 → 18,677

vs buy & hold

-443.1%

over the same period 529.9%

Max drawdown

40.4%

10,000 → 6,202

Longest underwater

411

411 days · 77% of the period

Settings that beat it

0 / 16

of 16 parameter settings tested

Win rate

100%

95% CI 99%–100% · n=459

This lost to simply buying and holding.

Over 2018-01-01 → 2026-09-23 it returned 86.8% while buying once on the first day and never touching it returned 529.9% — 443.1% worse. Not one of the 16 parameter settings tested beat the benchmark. The median setting returned 75.3%.

It spent 411 days below its previous high at the longest stretch — 77% of the whole period under water.

459 trades, a 100% win rate — and it still lost to doing nothing clever. A martingale only closes a cycle at a profit, so the win rate is 100% by construction. It tells you nothing about risk. What it actually cost: 63× the opening order tied up at the worst moment, and 971.8% left on the table versus simply buying a fixed amount on a schedule.

Price & fills

Equity

account equitybuy & holddashed = starting capital

Showing 397 of 1189 fills on the chart. Signals are taken on the close and filled at the next open.

A 0% risk of ruin here is a property of the test, not a safety rating. These runs are long-only spot with no borrowed money, so there is no margin call and nothing can force the position closed. The account cannot be wiped out — it gets stuck holding the asset instead. Capital deployed (63×) and max drawdown (40.4%) are the numbers that carry the risk on this page. The same rules run on margin would be a different measurement, and this figure would not stay at zero.

Outcome distribution

A single return is one chosen start date. These are 95 runs of the same rules with the start shifted forward 30 days at a time.

Worst	p10	p25	Median	p75	p90	Best	Losing starts
-38.5%	-11.0%	2.9%	9.0%	11.2%	13.4%	17.6%	20%

Does it survive its own parameters?

The headline above uses one parameter setting. Here is every setting tested: 16 combinations, median 75.3%, best 130.0%, worst 35.4%. 0 of them beat buy & hold.

A strategy that only works at one setting did not work — it was fitted.

Parameter grid

Martingale run across its own parameter range over the full period. The same rules flip from profit to loss depending only on the numbers you picked — which is why a single headline return is meaningless on its own.

	multiplier 1.5	multiplier 2	multiplier 2.5	multiplier 3
dropPct 0.03	130%	102%	75%	91%
dropPct 0.05	73%	87%	104%	118%
dropPct 0.08	54%	61%	82%	90%
dropPct 0.12	35%	43%	45%	52%

Hover a cell for trade count and drawdown. “·” = invalid combination (fast ≥ slow).

Year by year

Year	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Return	-35%	3%	10%	15%	-15%	7%	11%	1%	6%
Max DD	40%	9%	1%	1%	23%	2%	5%	7%	9%
Trades	30	75	87	126	29	46	65	36	24

Recent closed trades

Closed	P&L (USDT)	Held
2026-09-21	+5.70	step 1
2026-09-18	+17.09	step 2
2026-09-03	+5.70	step 1
2026-08-28	+5.70	step 1
2026-08-24	+5.70	step 1
2026-08-21	+5.70	step 1
2026-08-19	+358.90	step 6
2026-05-05	+358.90	step 6
2026-01-13	+358.90	step 6
2025-10-26	+85.45	step 4
2025-10-05	+5.70	step 1
2025-10-01	+17.09	step 2
2025-09-17	+17.09	step 2
2025-08-14	+5.70	step 1
2025-08-11	+5.70	step 1
2025-08-07	+17.09	step 2
2025-07-14	+5.70	step 1
2025-07-10	+5.70	step 1
2025-07-02	+5.70	step 1
2025-06-23	+39.88	step 3
2025-06-09	+39.88	step 3
2025-05-21	+5.70	step 1
2025-05-18	+5.70	step 1
2025-05-08	+5.70	step 1
2025-05-01	+5.70	step 1

What it is

Reference — Glowwiki: 마틴게일 (베팅 시스템)
The definitions and formulas below follow that article. It states its own limit plainly:
“실제 수익으로 이어지는지는 이 문서에서 다루지 않음.”
That is the question this page answers.

Note from the reference: The capital formula C = s₁(mᴺ−1)/(m−1) — and the 1,023× figure at m=2 over 10 steps — is arithmetic that follows from the definition, not a figure quoted by a source. The reference article marks it as such.

18th-century French casino betting system. Also known as Doubling system, averaging down.

Formulas

Stake at step n

sₙ = s₁ · mⁿ⁻¹

m = multiplier (classically 2)

Capital to survive N steps

C = s₁ · (mᴺ − 1) / (m − 1)

At m=2, 10 steps needs 1,023× the opening stake

Average entry after N adds

P̄ = Σ(sᵢ) / Σ(sᵢ / pᵢ)

Cost basis falls, but exposure grows geometrically

Expected value per cycle

E = p·w − (1−p)·l − fees

With a fair-coin edge of zero, fees make E strictly negative

Established

The system doubles the stake after each loss so that one win recovers all prior losses plus the original stake. [1, 3]
Required capital grows geometrically with the number of consecutive losses. [1]
With finite capital and a finite table limit, the probability of eventual ruin approaches certainty — the gambler's ruin result. [1, 2]
The system does not change the expected value of the underlying bet; it redistributes outcomes into many small wins and rare large losses. [1, 3]

Conventional reading

Applied to markets it is usually implemented as averaging down: adding larger positions as price falls, exiting when the averaged entry is recovered. [3]
On spot without leverage the failure mode is typically capital lock-up rather than liquidation; forced liquidation requires margin. [3]
The capital requirement above is arithmetic that follows from the doubling rule, not a figure quoted by any source. [3]

Listed as convention, not as established fact.

Sources

Martingale (betting system) — Wikipedia (en)
Gambler's ruin — Wikipedia (en)
마틴게일 (베팅 시스템) — Glowwiki (ko)

Assumptions

Period	2018-01-01 → 2026-09-23
Parameters	{"basePct":0.02,"dropPct":0.05,"multiplier":2,"takeProfitPct":0.03,"maxSteps":10}
Fees	0.10% taker + 0.05% slippage, both legs
Starting capital	10,000 USDT · long-only spot, no leverage
Rolling test	365 bars × 95 start dates
Input hash	1209b2ffa0e8f5f7

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