The Problem: Why Did Your Strategy Suddenly Start Losing? A strategy that looked great in backtesting starts losing consistently after going live. It's not a bug — the market changed . Our small-cap volume surge strategy (based on CEX volume spikes + technical confirmation) was designed as long-only. Simple logic: detect abnormal volume → confirm technically → go long. Backtests looked promising. But after deploying to Testnet, certain tokens kept losing: Token Trades Win Rate Cumulative P&L Good performer A 5 80% +$27 Bad performer B 3 0% -$15 Bad performer C 2 0% -$10 Same strategy logic, wildly different outcomes. Root Cause Digging into the data revealed a brutal truth: Short trades had 71.4% win rate. Longs only 39.3%. The market was in a downtrend. Our long-only strategy was fighting the current . The repeatedly losing tokens (B and C) were in clear downtrends. Their volume surges weren't bullish signals — they were panic selling . Our strategy mistook sell pressure for buying opportunities.…