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MARA: trading the chaos | Arch Public case study

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Contents

The results

The subject: MARA Holdings

The algorithm

“The long cycle”

“The down year”

“The long-term believer”

Side by side

Why the results differ

The real lesson

A path forward

Book a demo

Case studies

MARA

Case study: Arch Public for stocks

Trading the chaos

How the Market Wave Algorithm for Equities turned MARA's volatility into return across three timeframes.

MARA

Stock

Market Wave Algorithm for Equities

Valued July 23, 2026

5 min read

Positive in every test while both benchmarks lost money

MARA has spent three years staging convincing rallies and retracing to new lows. Buy and hold sat through a punishing drawdown. The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities ran the same rules-based logic across three timeframes on the same ticker and finished green every time.

Long cycle

1D, Jul 23, 2023 to Jul 23, 2026

Strategy

+158%

Buy and hold

-23%

DCA

-11%

Recent year

1H, Jul 23, 2025 to Jul 23, 2026

Strategy

+21%

Buy and hold

-29%

DCA

+2.5%

Position build

1W, Jan 1, 2024 to Jul 23, 2026

Strategy

+55%

Buy and hold

-47%

DCA

-14%

Three timeframes. One ticker. One set of rules. Every benchmark red. Every result from the Market Wave Algorithm for Equities green.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

MARA Holdings, MARA

Why MARA is a fair proving ground

Jul 23, 2023 to Jul 23, 2026 Three years of failed breakouts and fresh lows

Jan 1, 2024 to Jul 23, 2026 A 47% drawdown for buy and hold

Jul 23, 2025 to Jul 23, 2026 The most recent twelve months, a year MARA fell

Late July 2026 MARA traded in the low-to-mid teens after years of round trips, with buy-and-hold ROI still deep in the red across every window tested

The business

One of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners and treasury companies, now pivoting a large power footprint toward AI and HPC infrastructure, including multi-gigawatt power and land deals in Texas.

Why it swings

Revenue is tied to Bitcoin production and price, layered on energy costs, hardware schedules, share issuance, and regulatory headlines. It tracks Bitcoin but historically swings harder than Bitcoin itself.

The behavioral trap

For roughly three years the stock staged convincing rallies that looked like a new leg up, then rolled over to fresh lows. News-chasers were set up to buy strength and sell weakness at exactly the wrong moments.

The thesis

A name this noisy is where a rules-based approach should separate most clearly from human judgment. If the method holds here, the result is not a cherry-picked easy win.

Market Wave Algorithm for Equities

How the Market Wave Algorithm for Equities works

The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities reacts to price behavior, not narrative. It does not predict the next headline or guess where Bitcoin is going. It responds to what the chart is doing, sizing into weakness and taking money off the table into strength, with fixed logic that runs the same way on every bar.

It does not get more fearful after a drawdown or more greedy after a rally. It does not fall for the fifth fake breakout because the first four hurt. It executes the same rules in the same conditions regardless of how the last trade felt.

Rules-based and systematic

Every decision is pre-defined and repeatable, with no discretionary override.

Reactive, not predictive

It responds to realized price action. It does not forecast news or macro.

Two-sided by design

It accumulates on weakness and trims into strength, building a position while locking in profit.

Risk management is native

Taking profit into strength preserves ROI through the round trips that crush buy and hold.

Honest benchmarks

Every result is shown against buy and hold and DCA so the edge can be judged fairly.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

Scenario 1

“The long cycle”

Jul 23, 2023 to Jul 23, 2026 · Daily chart

Three years of failed breakouts and fresh lows. The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities accumulated through the declines and harvested into the rallies, without calling a single catalyst.

Strategy return

+158.3%

Buy and hold -23.3%

DCA -11%

Realized profit

$130,147

Unrealized profit

$28,188

Portfolio value

$258,336

Shares held

8,833

Avg cost basis

$9.41

vs buy and hold

+181.6%

Open full-size chart

The number to read Realized profit of $130k means most of the gain was already banked, not left in an open position hoping the next rally holds.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

Scenario 2

“The down year”

Jul 23, 2025 to Jul 23, 2026 · Hourly chart

Does the edge only appear over a full cycle? Zoom into the most recent twelve months, a year MARA fell. The Market Wave Algorithm for Equities did not need MARA to go up. It needed MARA to move.

Strategy return

+21.0%

Buy and hold -29.4%

DCA +2.5%

Realized profit

$19,932

Unrealized profit

$1,053

Portfolio value

$120,985

Shares held

3,462

Avg cost basis

$12.36

vs buy and hold

+50.4%

Open full-size chart

The number to read A 50-point spread over buy and hold in a losing year, with almost the entire gain realized rather than paper.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

Scenario 3

“The long-term believer”

Jan 1, 2024 to Jul 23, 2026 · Weekly chart

For the investor who believes in MARA long term but does not want a 47% drawdown to express it. Keep building exposure, sell a small portion into strength, protect the ROI.

Strategy return

+55.9%

Buy and hold -47.1%

DCA -14%

Realized profit

$40,721

Unrealized profit

$15,127

Portfolio value

$155,848

Shares held

5,329

Avg cost basis

$9.93

vs buy and hold

+102.9%

Open full-size chart

The number to read More than 100 points of outperformance over buy and hold, while still ending the period long the stock.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

Three timeframes. One ticker. One set of rules.

The consistency is the product. A rules-based, reactive, two-sided system behaved the same way through a three-year round trip, a single down year, and a weekly accumulation window, and beat buy and hold every time.

MARA results by scenario

Window

Strategy

Buy and hold

DCA

vs buy and hold

1D, three years

+158.3%

-23.3%

-11%

+181.6%

1H, one year

+21.0%

-29.4%

+2.5%

+50.4%

1W, from 2024

+55.9%

-47.1%

-14%

+102.9%

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

Where the edge comes from

MARA extracts money from human bias. It rallies enough to pull in believers, breaks conviction with a new low, shakes out holders, then reverses. A rules-based system sidesteps the whole problem.

The edge generalizes

The same rules beat both benchmarks on the 1D, 1H, and 1W windows, across cycles and regimes. This is not one lucky setup.

No bias to exploit

No chasing breakouts, no capitulating at lows, no drift in risk appetite after a win or a loss. The system just runs the rules.

Not a rising tide

Buy and hold was negative in all three windows. The outperformance is not the market's doing.

Gains are banked

Realized profit dominates every result. Returns were locked in along the way, not left exposed to the next reversal.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

What this means for you

01

For the individual trader

You do not have to out-guess a stock like MARA to profit from it. You have to stop letting it out-guess you. The system takes the decisions emotion gets wrong, chasing strength, panicking into weakness, freezing after a loss, and makes them consistently instead. You get the discipline without having to supply the willpower.

02

For the allocator

The edge is structural and repeatable. It shows up across multiple timeframes on the same instrument, with the majority of returns realized rather than paper, and it is measured honestly against buy and hold and DCA rather than against a straw man.

Backtested results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational purposes only.

See the Market Wave Algorithm for Equities run on your watchlist

Book a demo Or talk with the Concierge team

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Important disclosures

All results are backtested on historical MARA price data over the stated windows and timeframes, starting from a $100,000 initial cash balance. Benchmarks are buy and hold and dollar-cost averaging over the same period, plus a do-nothing baseline that holds cash. Profit figures are reported since the seeded strategy entry and split into realized and unrealized. Backtests do not include every real-world cost or constraint. Assumptions on fees, slippage, and fills are specified in the full methodology. Past performance and backtested results do not guarantee future returns. This is not investment advice.

© 2026 Arch Public. All rights reserved. Published July 24, 2026.

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