STOIC AI STRATEGY
Fixed Income — market-neutral carry strategy
Fixed Income holds a long spot position and a short futures position of the same size on the same asset, so price direction cancels out and the return comes from the funding rate paid between the two legs.
- Annualised return
- 10.30%Since Jan 2021 · includes backtest
- Annualised, live only
- 7.4%Since Sep 2022
- Max Drawdown
- 1.02%Measured on the daily equity curve
- Sharpe Ratio
- 7.7USDT denomination
Live since September 2022; figures before that date are backtested. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
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Direction-independent
Every long spot position is matched by a short futures position of the same size, opened at the same time, so net market exposure stays near zero and the return does not depend on which way prices move.
No losing 12-month period
Across every rolling year since January 2021, the weakest returned +3.1%.
Fully collateralised
Collateral always equals the position size, so the futures leg cannot be liquidated by a price move, and no single asset takes more than 10% of the portfolio.
Non-custodial
Your capital stays in your own exchange account. Stoic connects through API keys that carry no withdrawal rights and never takes custody of client assets.
Investment process
How Fixed Income earns without taking market risk
Fixed Income is a carry strategy, not a directional one. Each part below is a stage of the same pipeline, from where the yield comes from to how the hedge is put on.
Performance
Parameters
- 7.7 Sharpe Ratio
- 9.56 Calmar Ratio
- 0.81% Avg Monthly Gains
- 1.02% Max Drawdown
- 78.84% Profitable days %
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | YTD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3.32% | 6.49% | 3.86% | 4.88% | 0.40% | 0.28% | 0.48% | 1.31% | 1.22% | 1.89% | 1.51% | 0.42% | 29.13% |
| 2022 | 0.12% | -0.05% | 0.43% | 0.45% | -0.12% | -0.31% | 0.07% | 0.79% | 0.42% | 0.47% | 0.48% | 0.32% | 3.11% |
| 2023 | 0.42% | 0.59% | -0.26% | 0.57% | 0.56% | -0.02% | 0.47% | 0.35% | 0.28% | 0.56% | 0.94% | 2.21% | 6.86% |
| 2024 | 1.14% | 1.70% | 4.05% | 0.56% | 0.50% | 0.70% | 0.40% | 0.19% | 0.47% | 0.67% | 1.59% | 1.37% | 14.12% |
| 2025 | 0.81% | 0.29% | 0.39% | 0.28% | 0.35% | 0.34% | 0.77% | 0.57% | 0.65% | 0.19% | 0.00% | 0.15% | 4.91% |
| 2026 | 0.50% | -0.11% | 0.16% | 0.20% | 0.40% | 0.16% | 0.38% | 1.70% |
Where the money comes from
Funding is paid by one side of the market to the other
A perpetual contract has no expiry, so the exchange keeps its price tied to spot by making one side pay the other at a set interval — eight hours for the major assets this strategy trades. Fixed Income holds the side that gets paid.
Leveraged longs
Traders paying for upside exposure. Historically the crowded side.
Funding, every 8h
Reverses when shorts crowd in
Shorts — this strategy
Hedged one-for-one against spot, so it holds no view on the price.
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Scenario
The price rises 10%
+10%
Spot (long)
-10%
Futures (short)
funding
What's left
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Scenario
The price falls 10%
-10%
Spot (long)
+10%
Futures (short)
funding
Same either way
- 86%
- of eight-hour periods paid the short side — Bitcoin
- 84%
- of eight-hour periods paid the short side — Ethereum
- 5-20%
- APY in USDT, the historical range of that carry
Illustrative pair at an arbitrary 10% move, before fees; the funding block is not drawn to scale. Funding shares measured on Binance's USDT-margined perpetual contracts, January 2021 - August 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Market regimes
How Fixed Income behaves when the market moves
A carry strategy is judged against the obvious alternative: leaving the same USDT in a savings product. Each window below covers live trading only, and pairs Fixed Income's return over those dates with what a Binance Earn USDT deposit returned over exactly the same dates.
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Market rose
2024
- Binance Earn USDT
- +6.42%
- Fixed Income
- +14.1%
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Market fell
2025
- Binance Earn USDT
- +2.73%
- Fixed Income
- +4.9%
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Market fell sharply
2026 year to date
- Binance Earn USDT
- +0.72%
- Fixed Income
- +1.7%
All windows are live trading; Fixed Income has been live since September 2022. The Binance Earn USDT figures are the return on a plain USDT deposit over the same dates, shown for context, not strategy results, and are taken from Binance Earn USDT deposit rates (August 2026). Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Strategy terms and parameters
- 1 Strategy type Market-neutral carry (cash and carry), long spot against short futures
- 2 Live since September 2022
- 3 Denomination USDT
- 4 Exchange Binance
- 5 Universe Top 15 most liquid and trusted digital assets, each eligible as collateral for the futures leg
- 6 Hedging Long spot and short futures of equal size, opened at the same time; collateral always equals the position size
- 7 Monitoring Funding fee rates checked hourly; positions closed early when funding turns sharply negative
- 8 Position limits 10% per asset; long/short imbalance capped at a single order size
- 9 Minimum to start $500, preferably in USDT, USDC or BTC
- 10 Leverage None — the futures leg is fully collateralised
- 11 Custody Funds stay in your own exchange account, connected via API keys without withdrawal rights Specifications reflect the Fixed Income strategy as described in its monthly fact sheet. Limits are targets applied by the risk system, not guarantees.
Risk framework
How Fixed Income manages risk
The strategy's risk is not price risk — it is liquidation, liquidity and funding risk. Each is capped separately, so no single asset or rate move can dominate the outcome.
FAQ
Fixed Income questions, answered
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A carry strategy earns from the price gap between two related instruments rather than from either one going up. Fixed Income buys an asset in the spot market and sells the same amount of it in the futures market at the same time. The two positions cancel each other out, so the profit or loss on the price itself is close to zero, and what is left is the funding payment that futures traders exchange between themselves. It is also called cash and carry, or basis trading.
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A perpetual futures contract has no expiry date, so an exchange keeps its price tied to spot by making traders on one side pay traders on the other at a set interval. When the funding rate is positive, longs pay shorts. When it is negative, shorts pay longs. Fixed Income holds the short side of each futures position, so it collects the payment whenever funding is positive and pays it out when funding is negative. The interval is set per contract rather than per exchange — on Binance it is eight hours for every one of the top-15 assets in this strategy's universe, while many smaller contracts settle every four hours.
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Because leveraged demand in crypto has historically leaned long: more traders want leveraged upside exposure than leveraged downside, which pushes the perpetual price slightly above spot and makes longs the paying side. Measured on Binance's USDT-margined perpetual contracts, funding paid the short side in 86% of eight-hour periods for Bitcoin and 84% for Ethereum between January 2021 and August 2026. That tilt is a persistent market feature rather than a rule — it reverses in periods of heavy short interest, which usually means sharp sell-offs.
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The strategy exploits the price difference between the spot and futures markets on Binance, earning a carry yield that has historically ranged from about 5% to 20% APY. To remove market risk it opens fully hedged pairs — long in spot, short of the same size in futures — so the return comes from funding rate differentials rather than from prices going up or down.
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It shares none of their mechanics. Fixed Income does not lend or borrow your funds, does not stake or farm tokens, does not hold stablecoin protocol exposure, and does not use leverage. The yield is a fee paid by other futures traders on a regulated exchange, not a return promised by a protocol or a counterparty — so the failure modes that hit lending platforms and yield protocols in 2022 do not apply here.
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The strategy is market-neutral, so a falling price does not by itself cause a loss — the short leg gains what the long leg loses. The real effect of a crash is on funding: heavy short interest can push funding rates negative, which turns the income into a cost. If rates fall to levels such as -0.2%, the strategy reduces or closes positions to protect capital rather than paying to stay in.
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Three things, none of them price direction. Funding can turn negative and stay there, which is a cost rather than a loss of principal. Liquidity can thin out in a fast market, making it more expensive to open or unwind a pair. And the strategy depends on the exchange it runs on continuing to operate normally. The first is managed by exiting on sharply negative funding, the second by limiting the universe to the most liquid assets, and the third is the reason funds stay in your own account.
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No single asset may exceed 10% of the portfolio, and the universe is restricted to the top 15 most liquid and trusted digital assets, each of which is eligible as collateral for the futures leg. Collateral size always equals position size, so the futures leg cannot be liquidated by a price move. The imbalance between long and short positions on an account is capped at a single order size.
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The top 15 most liquid and trusted digital assets on Binance. Liquidity is the binding constraint rather than any view on the asset: the strategy needs to open and unwind a spot and a futures leg of the same size at the same time, which only works where both markets are deep. Each asset in the universe can also serve as collateral for the futures positions.
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Funding fee rates are checked hourly, and positions are rebalanced as the strategy moves capital toward the pairs paying the most. A position is closed early when its funding turns sharply negative. Profits are reinvested automatically.
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Fixed Income has been live since September 2022. Results shown for periods before that date come from backtests, and the performance chart on this page marks the boundary between the two so the live record can be read on its own.
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Both are market-neutral, but they earn from different things. Fixed Income earns from funding payments on hedged pairs, which produces a small, steady return with a very small drawdown. Meta earns from the relative performance of hundreds of long and short positions, which produces a higher return and a correspondingly wider drawdown. Fixed Income is the more conservative of the two.
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Because its return does not depend on the same thing. A directional crypto position is paid for taking price risk; Fixed Income is paid for supplying liquidity to futures markets. That makes it a way to keep capital productive in periods when a directional book is flat or drawn down, without leaving the asset class.
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Your funds stay in your own exchange account. Stoic connects through API keys that permit trading but not withdrawals, so no one at Stoic can move your money out — only you can deposit or withdraw, at any time and without notice periods.
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The minimum required amount is $500, preferably in USDT, USDC or BTC. Other crypto equivalents are also accepted, but stablecoins or BTC are recommended as they are optimal for the start of strategy execution.
Keep reading
Where Fixed Income runs and what sits beside it
The venue the carry depends on, how the strategy sits beside the others, and the documents behind the numbers.
Where it runs
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