Tickfloor

ICT / smart money trading: does it work?

Last updated

In-sample, not a promise. Every figure we measured here comes from a backtest on past data.

Did ICT and Smart Money Concepts beat the benchmark in Tickfloor's test?

No. We tested ICT and Smart Money Concepts on 8 crypto pairs, 2017 to 2025. After costs, it returned 99.9 to 163.0 percentage points a year less than the benchmark. None held up once we allowed for the many other rules we tested. This is a historical test of the rule as described, not a prediction or advice.

ICT (Inner Circle Trader) and smart money concepts (SMC) teach four building blocks: liquidity sweeps, order blocks, break of structure and fair value gaps. This page puts our test of each one side by side, and links the page for each.

The rule we tested. Four rules, each coded so a computer can follow it on hourly crypto bars: fade a sweep of yesterday's high or low and hold 12 hours; trade the retest of an order block (the last opposing candle before a 1.5 ATR move) with a 2R target; go with the trend after a higher high and higher low, or a lower high and lower low; and trade the first return into a fair value gap with a 2R target.

See a full worked example of one of these reads (free, no account)

Receipt: parameters, data, window and result file

Liquidity sweep of yesterday's high or low

Run id
t1010-pdhl-sweep-h, run 2026-10-10
Frozen parameters
timeframe 1h; hold=12
Data source
vendor not recorded in the result file; data fingerprint sha256 b5fc9686b2133fe5...
Instruments and coverage
8 assets: BTCUSDT, BNBUSDT, XRPUSDT, ADAUSDT, DOGEUSDT, LTCUSDT, LINKUSDT, TRXUSDT
Date window
2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (discovery cutoff 2025-03-15)
Sample
14,402 completed trades over 2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (7.6 years)
Cost rule
0.10% to 0.12% per side; charged on every change in position; benchmark pays none; no funding/borrow on shorts
Fill rule
not recorded
Benchmark
equal-weight long of the same assets, rebalanced daily across assets trading that day (no costs)
Run record (public)
research/hunt2/ledger.jsonl, line with id t1010-pdhl-sweep-h
Full result file
not published yet

Order block retest

Run id
t100-ob-h, run 2026-10-06
Frozen parameters
timeframe 1h; imp=1.5, expire=72, maxHold=24, targetR=2
Data source
vendor not recorded in the result file; data fingerprint sha256 d482077d31ca2631...
Instruments and coverage
8 assets: BTCUSDT, BNBUSDT, XRPUSDT, ADAUSDT, DOGEUSDT, LTCUSDT, LINKUSDT, TRXUSDT
Date window
2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (discovery cutoff 2025-03-15)
Sample
4,539 completed trades over 2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (7.6 years)
Cost rule
0.10% to 0.12% per side; charged on every change in position/weight; benchmark pays none; no funding/borrow on shorts
Fill rule
not recorded
Benchmark
equal-weight long of the same assets, rebalanced daily across assets trading that day (no costs)
Run record (public)
research/hunt2/ledger.jsonl, line with id t100-ob-h
Full result file
not published yet

Break of structure

Run id
t100-bos-h, run 2026-10-06
Frozen parameters
timeframe 1h; L=2
Data source
vendor not recorded in the result file; data fingerprint sha256 d482077d31ca2631...
Instruments and coverage
8 assets: BTCUSDT, BNBUSDT, XRPUSDT, ADAUSDT, DOGEUSDT, LTCUSDT, LINKUSDT, TRXUSDT
Date window
2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (discovery cutoff 2025-03-15)
Sample
33,501 completed trades over 2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (7.6 years)
Cost rule
0.10% to 0.12% per side; charged on every change in position/weight; benchmark pays none; no funding/borrow on shorts
Fill rule
not recorded
Benchmark
equal-weight long of the same assets, rebalanced daily across assets trading that day (no costs)
Run record (public)
research/hunt2/ledger.jsonl, line with id t100-bos-h
Full result file
not published yet

Fair value gap retest

Run id
t100-fvg-h, run 2026-10-06
Frozen parameters
timeframe 1h; minGap=0.5, expire=48, maxHold=24, targetR=2
Data source
vendor not recorded in the result file; data fingerprint sha256 d482077d31ca2631...
Instruments and coverage
8 assets: BTCUSDT, BNBUSDT, XRPUSDT, ADAUSDT, DOGEUSDT, LTCUSDT, LINKUSDT, TRXUSDT
Date window
2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (discovery cutoff 2025-03-15)
Sample
13,429 completed trades over 2017-08-17 to 2025-03-14 (7.6 years)
Cost rule
0.10% to 0.12% per side; charged on every change in position/weight; benchmark pays none; no funding/borrow on shorts
Fill rule
not recorded
Benchmark
equal-weight long of the same assets, rebalanced daily across assets trading that day (no costs)
Run record (public)
research/hunt2/ledger.jsonl, line with id t100-fvg-h
Full result file
not published yet

No. None of the versions we tested passed. After costs: crypto pairs −134.3 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −99.9 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −163.0 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −105.4 pts/yr vs the benchmark. None held up once we allowed for how many other rules we tested. That covers the versions, costs and benchmark described here, not every version of the rule.

Tested a rule of your own? Check whether your backtest is just luck. It is free and needs no account.

Failed: only the tested versions above. Not tested: Hand-drawn levels and discretionary chart reads; the optimal trade entry (OTE) zone; kill zones other than those on the linked pages; stocks, futures and forex. A result for the tested version says nothing about these.

This is one line in a bigger check. The research desk has run 1,346 strategies, most against an equal-weight benchmark of the same assets rebalanced daily that pays no costs (the strategies pay theirs). After correcting for how many we tried (the luck check, Benjamini-Hochberg, 1,778 tests), 0 passed. That does not prove no strategy works, and it says nothing about versions we did not test.

General information only. It doesn't consider your objectives, finances or needs. Tickfloor holds no financial services licence and never places trades.

Short answers: the verdict and the rule, as questions

Does ICT trading work?

No. None of the versions we tested passed. After costs: crypto pairs −134.3 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −99.9 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −163.0 pts/yr vs the benchmark; crypto pairs −105.4 pts/yr vs the benchmark. None held up once we allowed for how many other rules we tested. That covers the versions, costs and benchmark described here, not every version of the rule.

What exact rule did Tickfloor test?

Four rules, each coded so a computer can follow it on hourly crypto bars: fade a sweep of yesterday's high or low and hold 12 hours; trade the retest of an order block (the last opposing candle before a 1.5 ATR move) with a 2R target; go with the trend after a higher high and higher low, or a lower high and lower low; and trade the first return into a fair value gap with a 2R target.

What about the full TJR model?

The full TJR sequence (sweep, confirming close, pullback into a fair value gap) has its own page with a separate replay and a wider grid of tests, linked below.

Is this financial advice?

No. This measures a publicly claimed strategy rule, not a recommendation. General information only, not personal advice.

See the full numbers on the Popular indicator rules, Top 100 retail strategies family pages, or the full method and every result.

Linked from this page

Other rules we've tested

Terms explained