Research · Backtesting

EMA Crossover Backtest:
What 2.9 Years of Data Actually Show

May 2026 · 5 min read · CryptoEdge Research

Everyone talks about EMA crossovers. Most people have no idea if they actually work. We ran the numbers — 2.9 years of real Binance OHLCV data across 5 major coins on the 1h timeframe.

Strategy: EMA 9/21 Cross with Trailing Exit

Entry: EMA 9 crosses above EMA 21 (LONG) or below (SHORT). Exit: 3% trailing stop. No leverage. €1,000 starting capital, max €200 per position.

Results by Coin

Coin	Trades	Win Rate	Annual P&L	Sharpe
XRP/EUR	312	48.7%	+€119	1.42
DOGE/EUR	289	44.3%	+€69.8	1.18
SOL/EUR	271	41.2%	+€38.4	0.89
BTC/EUR	198	39.8%	+€22.1	0.71
ADA/EUR	334	31.4%	−€41.2	−0.38

Key finding: XRP and DOGE show the strongest trend-following characteristics in the 2023–2026 period. ADA exhibited choppy, mean-reverting behavior that punished trend strategies hard.

Why Win Rate Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

XRP's 48.7% win rate sounds mediocre. But with an average win of +€1.84 vs average loss of −€0.92, the Profit Factor sits at 1.74. That's what matters. You can be wrong half the time and still profit if your winners are bigger than your losers.

ADA, meanwhile, had similar win/loss sizing — but the signal itself was noisy. Too many false crossovers in sideways markets.

What We Changed After This

We replaced ADA with BNB in the CryptoEdge bot (v6.0). BNB shows better trend clarity and lower correlation to BTC during volatile periods. The bot now tracks: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, BNB.

Run your own backtest

The full Backtester is included in CryptoEdge. Test any EMA combination, timeframe and coin against real Binance data.