INTERACTIVE · BTC VS ALT
An altcoin can rise in dollars and still trail Bitcoin
BTC Radar's historical excess return describes how an altcoin performed against BTC after similar past conditions. It is not a forecast of your account profit. Change the price paths below to see how these two measures diverge.
Compare two price paths yourself
Enter starting and ending prices to compare USDT returns with BTC-relative performance. The default prices are hypothetical teaching examples, not a real trade record.
The altcoin lost USDT value, but BTC fell further. Positive excess return is not an absolute profit.
Formula: (alt end ÷ alt start) ÷ (BTC end ÷ BTC start) − 1 − assumed cost. USDT returns above are shown before cost for comparison. Real fees, spread and taxes vary.
Why divide growth factors?
Relative performance compares the two assets' growth factors. If BTC falls 10% and the altcoin falls 4%, the altcoin's factor of 0.96 divided by BTC's 0.90 is approximately +6.67% relative performance. That differs from simply subtracting the percentage returns, which yields six percentage points. Subtracting the tool's assumed 0.10 percentage-point cost gives +6.57%. The altcoin still lost 4% in USDT terms.
A practical reading sequence
- Check the update time and the number of successfully analyzed markets. A stale or failed feed is not a current signal.
- Read the percentile as the position of today's BTC/altcoin price ratio within the lookback window, not a probability of appreciation.
- Compare the 7-, 14- and 30-day medians with the positive-observation share and sample count.
- Use this calculator to see how BTC outperformance differs from actual USDT profit under alternative price paths.
- Before any trade, account for your own execution fees, liquidity, entry price and risk limit.
Many observations do not equal independent trials
Two 30-day observations starting one day apart share nearly all of their outcome windows. Thirty displayed observations should not be treated as thirty independent trades. The current top-20-by-volume selection can also leave out coins that no longer trade among today's leaders. A pattern from one market regime may fail in another.
Use the historical median as a comparison, not a promised expected return. The radar's signal history separately tracks observed forward outcomes; hours without site traffic may be missing from that history. Neither tool guarantees a future result or a good entry price.