One Month, Five Strategies, Wildly Different Results
August was the strongest month crypto has had this year. Bitcoin and Ethereum both rallied hard, risk appetite came back, and the assets that had been beaten down through the first half led the way up.
It was also a month where our five strategies produced results that look almost unrelated to each other. One returned more than 27%. Another returned less than half a percent. Both did exactly what they were designed to do.
That gap is the most useful thing in this report, so it is worth walking through properly.
What happened in the market
Momentum broadened across major digital assets during August. Improving sentiment, stronger institutional flows and renewed appetite for higher beta names pushed the market up through most of the month.
The rally was not smooth. As positioning adjusted rapidly, the market went through periods of elevated volatility and sharp reversals in relative performance. Assets that had been leading suddenly lagged, and recent laggards rebounded. That pattern has a name in quantitative trading: a momentum crash. It is a difficult environment for any strategy that relies partly on price trends persisting, and it happened right in the middle of the month.
Directional strategies benefited from the overall direction. Market-neutral strategies, which are built to ignore direction entirely, moved much less. Both outcomes were structural rather than surprising.
August 2026 results
Table showing monthly and year to date returns for five Stoic AI strategies in August 2026.
| Strategy | August 2026 | Year to date |
|---|---|---|
| Stoic AI Crypto Index | +27.08% | -16.54% |
| Meta (USDT) | +1.11% | +10.23% |
| BTC Yield | +0.49% | +8.32% |
| Superforecaster (USDT) | -2.29% | +13.80% |
| Fixed Income | +0.57% | +2.28% |
Two numbers in that table deserve immediate attention.
The first is Crypto Index at +27.08% for the month but -16.54% for the year. A single strong month did not undo a weak first half. January and June were both heavily negative, and the strategy is still recovering from them.
The second is Superforecaster at -2.29%. It was the only strategy down in a broadly rising market, which is counterintuitive until you look at what it does. It shorts persistent underperformers, and August was the month when persistent underperformers rebounded hardest.
The risk behind the returns
A return figure on its own tells you almost nothing. What it cost in risk to produce that return is the part that determines whether a strategy suits you.
Table showing Sharpe ratio and maximum drawdown for each Stoic AI strategy.
| Strategy | Sharpe ratio | Max drawdown | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stoic AI Crypto Index | 1.39 | -68.71% | $500 |
| Meta (USDT) | 2.12 | -12.01% | $500 to $1,000 |
| BTC Yield | 1.82 | -14.25% | $1,000 |
| Superforecaster (USDT) | 2.48 | -16.71% | $5,000 |
| Fixed Income | - | -1.02% | $500 |
Read those two tables together and the picture changes.
Crypto Index has produced the largest gains over its history and has also fallen 68.71% from a peak. That is not a flaw in the strategy, it is the strategy. Long only exposure to crypto means you get crypto's upside and crypto's drawdowns.
Meta and BTC Yield sit at the other end. Their worst declines have been roughly 12% and 14%. In exchange, a month where the market gains double digits shows up as roughly one percent.
You cannot have both. Any strategy that would have captured August's +27% would also have been exposed to the drawdowns that produced the -16.54% year to date figure.
Strategy by strategy
Stoic AI Crypto Index
A long only, auto rebalanced basket of top liquid assets, drawing on a pool of more than 100 sub-strategies. It moves with the crypto market by design, which is why it captured most of August's rally.
It is the most volatile option we run. The year to date figure of -16.54% after a +27.08% month is a fair illustration of what holding it actually feels like. It suits capital you can leave alone across a full cycle, starting from $500. We recently lowered the minimum on most strategies from $1,000 to $500 after improving execution, and the reasoning behind each threshold is set out in our guide to how much money you need to start investing.
Meta
Our flagship market-neutral strategy. Meta holds long and short positions sized to offset each other, so returns come from how individual assets perform relative to one another rather than from the direction of the market.
August tested it. During the mid month momentum crash the strategy took a short term drawdown, then recovered fully by month end and closed at +1.11%. Risk is spread across more than 200 active sub-strategies, and net exposure is typically held at or below one to two percent. Meta runs on seven exchanges, including Hyperliquid, where it trades fully on-chain while your funds stay in your own wallet.
BTC Yield
The same market-neutral engine as Meta, denominated in Bitcoin. Your BTC stays in your own exchange account as collateral, and the strategy works to increase the number of coins you hold.
This is the part people miss: its returns are measured in BTC, not dollars. The +8.32% year to date means 8.32% more Bitcoin, regardless of what Bitcoin did in dollar terms. It has historically averaged 12 to 18% a year in BTC, and it runs on Binance accounts.
Superforecaster
An adaptive long and short strategy. It buys assets that have become oversold on the expectation of mean reversion, and shorts assets that have persistently underperformed on the expectation that weakness continues.
August was the wrong month for the second half of that. The broad rebound lifted exactly the assets the strategy was positioned against, producing -2.29%. It remains up 13.80% for the year. It is not available in the app; we connect it by request through support, with a $5,000 minimum.
Fixed Income
Fully hedged with no market exposure, earning carry from futures funding rather than price movement. It returned 0.57% in August and 2.28% year to date.
Its worst drawdown on record is about one percent, which is the point of it. The returns are small and the variation between months is small too. It starts from $500.
What August actually demonstrated
Months like this one are useful precisely because they separate the strategies so clearly.
If your reaction to the table was that you would rather have held Crypto Index, that is a legitimate preference, but it comes attached to the -16.54% year to date and the 68.71% historical drawdown. If your reaction was that Meta's +1.11% looks thin, that same structure is what produced a contained drawdown when the market fell roughly 20% in June.
Neither is better. They answer different questions. The first is a bet on crypto going up over your holding period. The second is an attempt to earn a return that does not depend on that being true.
The practical question is not which strategy performed best in August. It is which drawdown you would still be holding through when it happens, because it will.
Full monthly tables, methodology notes and complete risk metrics for every strategy are in the strategy fact sheets, where each strategy's live-since date is stated, and month by month comparisons are on the strategy performance page.
Frequently asked questions
Which Stoic AI strategy performed best in August 2026?
Stoic AI Crypto Index returned 27.08%, the highest of the five. It is also the strategy with the deepest historical drawdown at 68.71%, and it remains down 16.54% for the year to date after a weak first half.
Why did the market-neutral strategies gain so little during a strong crypto month?
Because they are built not to depend on market direction. Meta and BTC Yield hold long and short positions sized to offset each other, so returns come from relative performance between assets rather than from the market rising. The same structure that limits the upside in a month like August is what limits the downside in a month like June.
What is a momentum crash?
A rapid reversal in relative price trends, where recent winners suddenly underperform and recent losers rebound. One occurred mid August 2026 as positioning adjusted during the rally. Strategies that rely partly on trends persisting came under short term pressure. Meta recovered by month end and closed positive.
Are BTC Yield returns measured in Bitcoin or dollars?
In Bitcoin. A gain of 8.32% year to date means the number of BTC held grew by 8.32%, independent of Bitcoin's dollar price. That makes the figure incomparable with the dollar denominated returns of the other strategies.
What is the minimum to start?
Stoic AI Crypto Index and Fixed Income start from $500. Meta starts from $500 on some exchanges and $1,000 on others, and BTC Yield starts from $1,000 on Binance. Superforecaster is not available in the app and is connected by request through support, with a $5,000 minimum.