What is iBitLabs Sniper?

iBitLabs Sniper is an AI-powered mean reversion trading system for SOL/USD perpetual futures. It analyzes multiple technical indicators in real-time and executes trades automatically on Coinbase.

The system runs 24/7, monitoring the market every 30 seconds, and makes trading decisions based on a combination of StochRSI, Bollinger Bands, volume analysis, and regime detection.

Everything Is Public

iBitLabs has no paywall and no signup. The whole thing — live results, full signals, every indicator, every trade, every course — is open to anyone. This is a social experiment, not a product.

• $1,000 of real money trading live on Coinbase
• Every trade public — balance, P&L, win rate, entries, exits
• Every signal public — StochRSI, Bollinger Bands, regime, entry conditions
• AI-written, human-judged — most production code is written by Claude; the founder writes constraints, redirects, and load-bearing decisions, documented commit-by-commit

Navigating the Platform

Key pages on iBitLabs:

• Homepage (/) — Live results ticker and project overview
• Dashboard (/signals) — Balance, P&L, open positions, trade history
• Signals (/signals) — Full indicator view: StochRSI, BB, regime, entry conditions
• Academy (/academy) — You are here! Courses and tutorials
• Saga (/writing) — Documentary novel narrated nightly by the script that watches the bot

Next Steps

Head to the free dashboard and explore. In the next lesson, we'll walk through every number and indicator on the dashboard so you know exactly what you're looking at.

The Stats Bar

At the top of the dashboard (and on the homepage ticker) you'll see the core performance numbers. Here's what each one means:

Numbers below are illustrative examples, not current live values. See the Live Dashboard for real numbers.

Balance

The current total value of the trading account in USD. We started with exactly $1,000 on April 7, 2026. This number goes up when trades profit, down when they lose. It includes unrealized P&L from any open position.

Total P&L (Profit & Loss)

The dollar amount gained or lost since the start. Shown as green (+) for profit or red (-) for loss. Calculated as: Balance minus Starting Capital ($1,000). This is the ultimate measure — did the Sniper make money or not?

Win Rate

Percentage of completed trades that closed in profit. An early V5.1 backtest over 30 days appeared to show 90% across 20 trades — a number that collapsed to −46% return when the same logic was re-tested over 13 months. Live results since April 7, 2026 are running closer to 48%. Win rate alone does not tell the story:

• A 90% win rate with tiny wins and one huge loss = net loss
• A 48% win rate with disciplined risk management + trailing stops = workable edge
• Any WR number from under 90 days of data is statistical noise

V5.1 uses no fixed take-profit — the trailing stop (arms at +0.4% peak, exits on a 0.5% pullback from the high) captures the full move when one appears. The 5% stop-loss provides the backstop. The real test is over 90+ days, across multiple market regimes. We’re still collecting that data live.

Trade Count

Total number of completed trades since launch. More trades = more data = more confidence in the win rate and strategy performance.

Current Position

The dashboard shows whether the Sniper currently has an open trade:

• LONG (green) — The Sniper bought SOL, expecting price to rise. You'll see entry price, current price, and live P&L.
• SHORT (red) — The Sniper sold SOL, expecting price to fall. Same details shown in reverse.
• No Position — The Sniper is waiting for the right conditions. This is normal — patience is part of the strategy.

Reading an Open Position

When a position is active, you'll see:

• Direction — LONG or SHORT
• Entry Price — The price where the Sniper opened the trade
• Current Price — Live SOL price right now
• Unrealized P&L — How much the trade is up or down, before it closes

Trade History

The recent trades section shows completed trades with:

• Direction — Was it LONG or SHORT?
• Entry/Exit Prices — Where it opened and closed
• P&L — Dollar profit or loss from that trade
• [G] tag — Means it was a grid trade (sideways market harvesting)

Why Regime Matters

The Sniper doesn't trade the same way in every market. It first identifies the current regime — is the market trending or ranging? — then adapts its behavior accordingly.

Three Regimes

• Uptrend — Price has been rising over the past 30 days. The Sniper only takes LONG trades (buying), never fights the trend by shorting.
• Downtrend — Price has been falling. The Sniper only takes SHORT trades (selling), never buys against a falling market.
• Sideways — No clear direction. Both LONG and SHORT are allowed, plus the micro-grid activates to harvest small profits from the chop.

SOL Price

The current SOL/USD price from Coinbase, updated every 30 seconds. This is the price the Sniper is watching for breakout signals.

How Regime is Calculated

The Sniper analyzes 30 days of hourly price data. If the 30-day trend is clearly up → Uptrend. If clearly down → Downtrend. If flat or unclear → Sideways. This is recalculated automatically.

The Signals Behind Every Trade

So far you've seen the outcomes: balance, P&L, win rate, positions, trade history, and market regime. The signals dashboard shows the inputs — the live indicators the Sniper uses to decide when to enter and exit. Everything on it is public.

What Each Panel Shows

StochRSI Panel

Real-time Stochastic RSI value (0-1). The threshold levels determine entry zones — you learned what these mean in the Strategy Deep Dive. The panel shows the live indicator and whether breakout conditions are met right now.

Bollinger Bands

Where price sits relative to the upper/middle/lower bands. When BB conditions align with StochRSI, the Sniper is preparing to enter.

Entry Conditions Checklist

A live checklist showing which conditions are met right now: StochRSI breakout, BB position, volume confirmation, regime alignment. When multiple boxes are green, a trade is imminent.

Micro-Grid Levels

In sideways markets, see the exact buy/sell price levels where grid orders are placed. Understand exactly where the Sniper is harvesting in the chop.

Full Trade Details

Every trade with entry price, exit price, direction, P&L, and exit reason (TP hit, SL hit, trailing stop, grid fill).

Telegram Alerts

Every open and close is also broadcast to the public Telegram channel. Direction, price, P&L — in real time.

How to Use It

1. Open /signals in another tab
2. Watch the indicators as the Sniper evaluates the market
3. Cross-reference with what you've learned in the strategy lessons

The Core Idea

Mean reversion is based on a fundamental property of markets: price doesn't move in a straight line. After an extreme move in one direction, it tends to snap back toward the average. The Sniper's job is to identify those extremes and enter just before the snap-back.

Think of it like a rubber band. The further price stretches away from its average, the greater the tension — and the stronger the eventual return to equilibrium.

How the Sniper Uses It

The Sniper buys when SOL is statistically oversold and shorts when it's statistically overbought:

• Long entry — StochRSI drops below 0.10 (extreme oversold) AND price touches the lower Bollinger Band
• Short entry — StochRSI rises above 0.90 (extreme overbought) AND price touches the upper Bollinger Band

Both conditions must be met simultaneously. The regime filter then adds a third check: if the broader trend is strongly against the trade direction, the Sniper waits.

Why It Works in Crypto

Crypto retail traders are emotional. They panic-sell during dips and FOMO-buy during rallies, creating overshoots that correct quickly:

• Oversold extremes — forced liquidations push price below fair value → smart money buys → fast recovery
• Overbought extremes — leveraged longs pile in at tops → funding rate spikes → position unwind → price falls

Why SOL/USD?

SOL/USD perpetual futures is ideal for mean reversion because:

• High volatility — extreme readings happen frequently, creating more entry opportunities
• Deep liquidity — tight spreads, fast fills, minimal slippage
• Mean-reverting behavior — SOL regularly overshoots and corrects within hours
• 24/7 market — the Sniper catches extremes at any hour

Mean Reversion vs Momentum Breakout

Momentum traders chase the move — they buy when price is breaking higher. This can work in strong trends but gets crushed in choppy markets.

Mean reversion does the opposite: buy the dip, sell the rip. The edge comes from being contrarian at statistical extremes. Most oversold/overbought extremes do snap back — but not all. The 5% SL provides protection on the ones that don’t. The real win rate isn’t 90% (that was a narrow-window artifact); live data is closer to 48%. Combined with trailing stops that let winners run and a hard SL on losers, the math works out on the long arc.

What Is StochRSI?

StochRSI applies the Stochastic oscillator formula to RSI values instead of raw price. The result is an indicator that's more sensitive to short-term momentum shifts than either RSI or Stochastic alone.

It outputs two lines — %K (fast) and %D (slow) — that oscillate between 0 and 100.

How to Read It

• Below 0.10 — Extreme oversold. Price has dropped hard and fast. The Sniper looks for a long entry here.
• Above 0.90 — Extreme overbought. Price has surged hard and fast. The Sniper looks for a short entry here.
• 0.10–0.90 — Neutral zone. No extreme reading. The Sniper stays flat and waits.

The Sniper's Settings

The Sniper uses these specific parameters, tuned through backtesting:

• RSI period: 14 — standard lookback for underlying RSI
• Stochastic period: 14 — applied on top of RSI values
• %K smoothing: 3 — reduces noise in the fast line
• %D smoothing: 3 — the signal line for crossover detection

Why Not Just Use RSI?

Standard RSI (14) can sit in overbought or oversold territory for days during strong trends. It's too slow for the Sniper's 30-second decision cycle.

StochRSI tells you where the current RSI sits relative to its own recent range. An RSI of 35 might be "oversold for this week" even though it's technically neutral on the absolute 0-100 scale. StochRSI catches this nuance.

StochRSI Alone Isn't Enough

The biggest mistake traders make with StochRSI is trading every time it hits an extreme. Not every oversold/overbought reading leads to a clean reversal — sometimes the trend continues and the extreme gets more extreme.

The Sniper solves this by requiring Bollinger Band confirmation and a favorable regime before entering. StochRSI is the first filter, not the only one.

What Are Bollinger Bands?

Bollinger Bands are three lines plotted around price:

• Middle band — 20-period simple moving average (the equilibrium line)
• Upper band — middle + 2 standard deviations
• Lower band — middle − 2 standard deviations

Statistically, price stays within the bands about 95% of the time. When it breaks outside, it's in rare territory — and if it does so with strong momentum, it signals a genuine breakout.

How the Sniper Uses Them

Bollinger Bands serve as the Sniper's second confirmation layer for mean reversion entries:

• Price at or below lower band + StochRSI below 0.10 → oversold extreme. Price has stretched too far down. The Sniper enters long, expecting a snap-back toward the middle band.
• Price at or above upper band + StochRSI above 0.90 → overbought extreme. Price has stretched too far up. The Sniper enters short, expecting a pullback toward the middle band.
• Price near middle band → no edge. The Sniper stays flat and waits.

The Middle Band as Target

The middle band (20-period SMA) is the equilibrium line. In a mean reversion strategy, it represents the "fair value" that price tends to return to after an extreme. The Sniper's trailing stop captures profit as price moves back toward this level.

Band Width as Volatility Gauge

The distance between upper and lower bands tells the Sniper how volatile the market is right now:

• Wide bands — high volatility, larger TP/SL targets needed
• Narrow bands — low volatility, tighter TP/SL, grid strategy may activate

This adaptive behavior is why the Sniper adjusts its risk parameters in real-time rather than using fixed targets.

Why Regime Matters

Momentum breakout works great in trending markets. In ranging markets, it generates false breakouts — price pokes above resistance then falls right back. Regime detection is the Sniper's safety valve.

How It Works

The Sniper analyzes 30 days of price data to classify the current market into one of three regimes:

• Trending Up — price has made consistently higher highs and higher lows. The Sniper favors long breakout entries and avoids short breakdowns.
• Trending Down — price has made consistently lower highs and lower lows. The Sniper favors short breakdown entries and avoids long breakouts.
• Ranging — no clear directional bias. Breakout signals are less reliable here. The micro-grid strategy takes over.

The Direction Filter

Even when StochRSI and Bollinger Bands flash a perfect signal, the Sniper checks regime first:

• Long breakout signal in a downtrend? → Skip it. Breakouts against the trend usually fail.
• Short breakdown signal in an uptrend? → Skip it. Shorting bull markets gets destroyed.
• Long breakout in an uptrend? → Take it. This is the Sniper's sweet spot — momentum plus trend alignment.

Regime Transitions

The most dangerous moments are when the market shifts from ranging to trending (or vice versa). The Sniper uses a buffer zone — it doesn't flip instantly when the 30-day data changes. This prevents whipsaws during noisy transitions.

The #1 Rule

A strategy with 90% win rate still loses about 10% of the time. Without proper risk management, even one bad loss can wipe out multiple gains. The Sniper treats risk management not as an add-on but as the foundation of every trade.

Six Layers of Protection

1. Stop-Loss (SL)

Every trade has a hard stop-loss set at entry. If price moves against the position beyond this level, the trade is closed immediately — no exceptions, no hoping for a bounce. The SL distance is calibrated to current volatility using ATR (Average True Range).

2. Take-Profit (TP)

Every trade has a predefined take-profit target. The Sniper doesn't get greedy — it captures the breakout move and exits. TP is typically set at a fixed multiple of ATR beyond the entry, calibrated to the current volatility regime.

3. Trailing Stop

When a trade crosses +0.4% peak profit, the Sniper arms a trailing stop. If price keeps moving in the favorable direction, the stop follows. If price reverses by 0.5% from the high, the trailing stop fires and locks in partial profit. If the trade never reaches +0.4%, trailing never arms — the 5% SL is the only backstop. This lets winners run without giving back all gains.

4. Position Sizing

The Sniper never risks more than a fixed percentage of the account on any single trade. Position size is calculated based on the distance to the stop-loss — wider SL means smaller position, tighter SL means larger position. The risk per trade stays constant.

5. Cooldown Period

After a losing trade, the Sniper waits before re-entering. This prevents revenge trading and avoids entering a market that clearly isn't behaving as expected. The cooldown duration adapts — more consecutive losses means longer wait.

6. Circuit Breaker

If the account loses more than a set percentage in a single day, the Sniper shuts down entirely for the rest of that day. This is the nuclear option — it overrides everything else. Markets can have regime shifts that no indicator catches in time, and the circuit breaker limits the damage.

The Idea: Earning in Sideways Markets

Mean reversion needs price to reach an extreme. In tight, ranging markets, price never stretches far enough to trigger the Sniper. The grid was designed to fill those idle gaps — earning small profits on every price oscillation while waiting for the next extreme.

How the Grid Worked

The micro-grid placed a series of buy and sell orders at evenly spaced price levels above and below the current price. When price oscillated within the range:

• Buy orders fill as price dips → sells at the next level up
• Sell orders fill as price rises → buys at the next level down

Each fill captured a tiny profit. Individually small, but designed to add up during ranging conditions.

Why It Was Disabled

Backtesting the 30-day live period showed the grid was a net negative: 7 losses against 1 win, -$16 total. The grid was triggering in volatile conditions it wasn't designed for, creating losses that offset the Sniper's gains.

The decision: run the Sniper solo. Mean reversion is the proven edge. The grid added complexity and losses without improving returns.

Why One Indicator Fails

Every indicator generates false signals. StochRSI stays oversold during crashes. Bollinger Bands break in parabolic moves. Volume spikes on news that has nothing to do with technicals. No single indicator has a reliable edge on its own.

The Sniper's edge comes from confluence — requiring multiple independent signals to align before entering a trade.

The Entry Checklist

For the Sniper to open a long position, it needs:

1. StochRSI above 90 — strong upward momentum
2. Price at or above upper Bollinger Band — breaking out of the range
3. Volume surge — buying pressure is accelerating, confirming the breakout is real
4. Regime is not trending down — not fighting a bear trend

For shorts: StochRSI below 25, price at or below lower BB, volume surge, and regime not trending up.

Why This Works

Each condition independently has maybe a 55-60% success rate. But the probability of all four being wrong simultaneously is very low. When they all agree, the odds shift strongly in favor of a sustained breakout.

Think of it as a jury system. One juror can be wrong. Four jurors all being wrong at the same time? Much less likely.

The Trade-Off: Fewer Trades

The downside of requiring confluence is that the Sniper trades less often. Many oversold readings don't have BB confirmation. Many BB touches happen without StochRSI extremes. The Sniper might enter only a few times per week.

But each trade has a much higher expected value. The system trades quality over quantity — waiting patiently for the rare moment when everything lines up.

The Numbers (V5.1)

The current strategy (V5.1) is a regime-adaptive mean reversion system backtested on 30 days of SOL/USD perpetual futures data. Key results:

• Win rate: 90% — 18 wins out of 20 trades
• Total return: +9.1% in 30 days — from $1,000 to $1,091 with 2x leverage
• Only 1 stop-loss hit — mean reversion's wide 5% SL avoids most false stops
• All regimes profitable — up, down, and sideways markets all contribute positive returns
• 80% of exits via trailing stop — no fixed take-profit; trailing stop captures the full move
• SOL outperformed by +11.2% — SOL was -2.1% during the same period

What "90% Win Rate" Actually Means

A high win rate does not mean every month is profitable or that losses don't happen. It means:

• Out of every 10 trades, roughly 9 are winners and 1 is a loser
• Winners are captured by the trailing stop, which locks in profits as price moves in our favor
• The single loser is capped at 5% SL — approximately $80 on a $1,000 account at 2x leverage
• The edge comes from selectivity: only entering when all conditions align simultaneously

Backtesting vs Live Trading

Every strategy looks better in backtests than in live trading. Common reasons:

• Slippage — backtests assume perfect fills; real orders may slip 0.01-0.05%
• Latency — the model sees a signal and acts instantly; real execution has network delay
• Market impact — small for our position sizes, but non-zero
• Regime changes — the future market may behave differently than the backtest period

This is why the Sniper is tracked live on the free dashboard. You can compare backtest claims against real-time performance yourself.

How We Stress-Test

Beyond the standard backtest, we validate the strategy under adverse conditions:

• Black swan events — What happens if SOL drops 30% in a day? The circuit breaker activates after the first few losses, capping total exposure.
• Low volatility periods — The Sniper waits for the next extreme reading rather than forcing trades.
• Extreme trend — The regime filter keeps the Sniper from fighting strong directional moves.

Verify It Yourself

The free dashboard shows live, unfiltered performance. Every trade, every PnL entry, every win and loss. We don't cherry-pick — what you see is what the Sniper is actually doing right now.