EdgeLedger
Methodology

How an edge earns its place here.

Most signal services publish results. We publish the process that produces them — because a win rate without its methodology is just a screenshot. Every rule below is checkable against the catalog, research log, and ledger.

The validation pipeline

Backtest → walk-forward → permutation → live shadow

01

Backtest, cost-adjusted

Every candidate edge is tested on up to 7 years of 1-minute MNQ data (171,000+ bars on the dense era). All results are net of costs — we charge every simulated trade 2 points for commission and slippage. Fills on higher-timeframe setups are simulated bar-by-bar on the 1-minute path, not on the bar close, so intrabar stop-outs count against us.

02

Walk-forward on held-out data

The data is split into sequential regime windows (typically 6). An edge must stay profitable in windows it was never fitted on. In-sample-only results are never published as validation — when you see 'walk-forward' on a premium card, it means every fold was out-of-sample.

03

Permutation controls

A surviving edge is tested against matched random entries (same days, same session, same exit rules). If random entries perform similarly, the edge is an artifact of market drift, not a real effect — it dies regardless of its win rate. Placebo-level tests killed our own legacy volume-profile edges in July 2026; the retraction is public on the research log.

04

Live shadow tracking

Validated edges fire in shadow first: real-time signals, tracked to resolution, no live positions and no subscriber alerts until live behavior matches the backtest. The shadow record accrues on the ledger like everything else.

What the tiers mean

Premium is a claim, not a price

Premium

Walk-forward validated: held-out test positive, permutation-tested where applicable, live shadow-tracked. This is the only tier we describe as validated.

Standard

Backtest-positive with honest in-sample numbers shown; walk-forward audit pending. Explicitly labeled as such on every card.

Beta

Small samples, experimental filters, or booster logic. Shown with caution flags because hiding work-in-progress would be its own kind of lie.

When we're wrong

Retractions stay public

When a re-audit kills a published number, we don't quietly delete it — we retract it in public. This page once linked to an edge showing 69.5% WR; a five-month re-audit on live bars measured 33.5% for that configuration. The edge was re-scoped, demoted, and the retraction note lives on its catalog card and the research log. An entire family of volume-profile edges was closed the same way after placebo-controlled testing. If a service has never retracted anything, it isn't because they've never been wrong.

Alert integrity

The tamper-evident alert log

The oldest trick in this category is posting the alert after the move. Our answer: every published signal is stamped into a hash chain at the moment of emission. Each signal's SHA-256 integrity hash covers its trade-defining fields (setup, symbol, direction, entry, stop, target, emission timestamp) plus the hash of the signal before it. Editing or deleting any historical alert breaks every hash after it — visibly and permanently.

integrity_hash = sha256(prev_hash + setup + symbol + direction + entry + stop + target + emitted_at)
Hashes are visible on each signal's detail page. Alerts are simultaneously delivered to Discord, whose message timestamps we don't control — two independent clocks on every alert.
Conduct rules

Lines we don't cross

  • Every outcome publishes — wins, losses, and expiries. The ledger computes from the database; there is no editorial step.
  • No earnings claims. We publish per-trade statistics with sample sizes, never income promises.
  • No front-running: the system that emits alerts holds no position ahead of them. Signals are generated and published by the same automated pipeline.
  • Cancel anytime — subscriptions are managed by Whop, not by talking to us.
  • Not financial advice, and not a substitute for your own risk management. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss.
  • Not affiliated with ICT / Inner Circle Trader or any educator. If a Discord claims to be us and isn't linked from this site, it isn't us.