Crypto Signal Deck — FAQ
Quick answers. The Quick Start (plain-English walkthrough) and Manual
(full detail) are linked top-right on every page.
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The basics
What is Crypto Signal Deck?
A research cockpit for crypto. It watches a list of coins, scores each one
daily with a small set of evidence-based signals (momentum, trend,
relative strength, on-chain valuation, volatility), and tests those signals
with a practice (paper) portfolio. It's information to weigh, not advice to
follow.
Does it actually work?
Judge for yourself — the public track record logs every
BUY signal the engine ever fired and what happened 7 and 30 days later,
losers included, plus our own live paper account against just holding
Bitcoin. No cherry-picking; heavy caveats attached.
Is this financial advice?
No. The app shows *signals, not recommendations*. Nothing here is a suggestion
to buy or sell anything. Crypto is extremely volatile and you can lose
everything you put in — decisions are yours alone.
Does it ever trade with real money?
No. All trading in the app is paper (pretend) money. Live trading is
hard-disabled in the code behind two separate safety switches, and the
exchange connectors deliberately refuse to place orders.
Do I have to do anything daily?
No. Prices refresh every minute and the big daily review runs automatically
just after midnight UTC (crypto trades 24/7, so there's no market open/close).
Email alerts tap you on the shoulder when something changes.
Which coins does it watch?
Your own watchlist of major coins — new accounts start with the 5 strongest
coins right now. Add any Coinbase USD pair from the Dashboard (how many you
can watch depends on your plan), and remove coins you don't care about —
though a coin with an open paper position must be sold first.
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Accounts & plans
How do I sign in?
Email + password, or "Continue with Google" — both reach the same account if
they share an email. There's a password-reset link on the login page. Your
watchlist, paper account, settings and alerts are all your own.
Why does it want me to verify my email?
Verifying proves the inbox is yours and unlocks subscriptions. The app works
without it — the banner has a "Resend the link" button if the email went
missing.
What do the plans include?
Free: the full signal engine on a 5-coin watchlist, paper trading by hand.
Starter: 10 coins plus your own paper auto-trader. Pro: 30 coins, the
auto-trader with full risk tuning, and premium on-chain feeds as they land.
Upgrade on the Billing page — payments are handled by Stripe; we never see
your card.
Can I pay yearly?
Yes — both paid plans have a yearly option (roughly two months free:
Starter $49.99/yr, Pro $99.99/yr). Pick it on the Billing page; the Stripe
portal handles switching later.
What's "Give a month, get a month"?
Your referral link lives on the Billing page. When a friend signs up through
it and starts a paid plan, you *both* automatically get a month of Starter
($4.99) credited against your next bill. One reward per referred friend.
What happens if I cancel?
You keep your plan until the end of the period you've paid for, then drop to
Free. Nothing is deleted — your history and settings stay; features just cap
at the Free limits.
How do I delete my account?
Settings → Danger zone. Any subscription is stopped first (no further
charges), then your data is removed. This can't be undone.
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Signals & the score
What does the score mean?
Each coin's score is a simple sum of a few transparent signals — 90-day
momentum, the 200-day trend, relative strength vs the other coins, on-chain
valuation (Bitcoin only) and volatility. Open any coin to see exactly what
fired and why, point by point. No black box.
Why does a coin say HOLD when its score looks good?
Buying is gated by safety rules on top of the score: a coin below its 200-day
average, or one that isn't among the stronger coins on the watchlist, can't be
bought no matter its score. Coins other than Bitcoin face two extra gates:
they can't be bought while Bitcoin itself is below its 200-day average
(market risk-off), and they must be beating Bitcoin's 90-day return —
otherwise just holding BTC would have done better. The coin page's "Why this
signal?" list names the exact reason. These gates came from replaying 5½
years of history: without them the altcoins quietly ate the profits.
Why is the app doing nothing / sitting in cash?
That's usually the answer, not a problem. When most of the market is in a
downtrend (see the Market breadth card), nothing qualifies to buy — the
app protects the pot by waiting. Historically, sitting out crashes is where
this style of system earns its keep.
What's "RS"?
Relative strength: this coin's risk-adjusted momentum ranked against the rest
of the watchlist, 0–100. The app only buys coins in the stronger part of the
pack ("buy the strongest, skip the laggards").
Why does only Bitcoin have a valuation signal?
The MVRV Z-score (an on-chain "cheap vs expensive" measure) is only reliably
available for Bitcoin on free data. Other coins are simply scored without it —
it's omitted, never guessed.
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The robot (auto-trader)
What does the auto-trader do?
Once a day, after the signals refresh, it checks every coin on your watchlist:
positions you hold are checked for exits first, then it considers fresh buys
for coins flagged BUY — sized by volatility and capped so no single coin or
the whole pot gets over-exposed. It trades *your* paper account under *your*
risk settings. Paper money only, always. (It's the headline feature of the
paid plans — Free accounts trade by hand.)
How does it decide to sell?
Several independent exits, all visible before they fire: a fixed stop-loss
below average cost, an ATR trailing stop below the peak since entry, a
signal flip to SELL (all three sell everything), plus softer "trim" rules
(price below its 50-day average, or 30-day momentum turning negative) that
sell a slice once when the condition appears — not every day it persists.
The Stop column on the Dashboard shows the exact price where each holding
would be sold automatically. (Your Bitcoin core, if you've set one, is exempt
from all of these.)
What are the other safety rails?
After a stop-loss it won't re-buy that coin for a cooldown period; buying
pauses if the pot drops sharply in a day or falls too far below its recent
(90-day) peak; stale prices and wide spreads also block trades. Every block is
logged on the Risk page.
Where do I see what it actually did?
The Trades page lists every order — yours and the robot's — with fill
prices and fees. You also get an email (and a Telegram message, if connected)
whenever it actually buys or sells, and those show on the Alerts page.
What's the "buy-and-hold Bitcoin core"?
Your personal risk dial (Settings → Paper auto-trader; experimental, default
0%). At 0% the robot's safety exits protect everything — smallest
crashes, smallest gains. Slide it up and that share of the pot is held in
Bitcoin and never sold by the robot — you ride Bitcoin's full ups AND
downs on that slice, while the strategy trades around it. Bitcoin you
already hold counts toward the core first, so raising the dial doesn't
double-buy. On 5½ years of history 25% was the best-tested setting (~8
points more per median year, ~10 points deeper crashes); higher settings
mostly just track Bitcoin. There's no right answer — it's how much
rollercoaster you can stomach.
Can I limit how much money the robot uses?
Yes — three controls in Settings → Paper auto-trader. Hold back reserves a
slice of the pot as cash the robot never touches, so you can make your own
calls with it (0% = robot can use everything, 100% = robot never buys). **Max
coins caps how many positions it holds at once. And manage my manual
buys** decides whether its safety exits also protect coins you bought by hand
— turn it off and the robot never sells anything you opened yourself.
What's the weekly digest?
A Sunday email with your week in one glance: what your pot did, every trade
your robot made, and which of your coins are currently BUY. On by default;
turn it off in Settings → Paper account & notifications.
Can I get alerts in Telegram?
Yes — Settings → Paper account & notifications → Connect Telegram, then
press Start in the bot chat. You'll get the same BUY-flip and robot-trade
alerts there as by email; send /stop to the bot anytime to disconnect.
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Backtests
What does the Backtest page do?
It replays your current rules day-by-day over stored price history (no
peeking at the future, completed daily bars only), after fees and slippage,
and compares the result to just buying and holding. Pick a single coin, or
📊 Whole portfolio to simulate the entire system — *your* watchlist,
*your* settings (including your Bitcoin core dial), one shared pot, every
safety rule, with coins ranked against the whole market exactly like the
live signals.
Should I trust the numbers?
Treat them as evidence, not promises. Past results don't guarantee future
ones, and ~5 years of crypto history is one sample. The whole-portfolio test
is the honest one — it includes the cross-coin ranking and shared cash that
single-coin tests can't model, and the current strategy was additionally
checked across 16 rolling one-year windows before going live.
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Display & modes
What's the green "In plain English" box?
A one-paragraph translation of what each page is showing right now, written
from live data. Hide it with the button on the box; turn it back on from the
Dashboard or Settings.
What's Simple mode?
One switch (in Settings) that hides the advanced surface: the menu trims to
the essentials, raw scores become "N good signs · M cautions", and limit
orders and the points table are tucked away. Everything still runs — it's
just out of sight.
What's the guided tour, and can I see it again?
Step-by-step pop-ups that point at the real controls on the Dashboard, Today,
Alerts, Trades and Settings. It runs the first time you open each page;
"Skip tour" turns it off everywhere. Replay the whole thing anytime from
"▶ Replay the whole tour now" on the Settings page (or the link at the bottom
of the Dashboard).
What's the 📅 Today page?
Your morning-coffee view — everything that changed in the last 24 hours:
coins that flipped to BUY, the biggest price moves on your watchlist since
yesterday's daily close, and what your paper robot (or you) traded.
Can I change the chart's timeframe, and does it show today's move?
Yes to both. Every coin's chart has 1D · 7D · 30D · 90D · 180D · 1Y · All
buttons (the two short views use hourly bars), and the line always ends with
a hollow dot for the live price — today's still-forming value. The signals
themselves only ever use completed daily bars, so nothing about the strategy
changes.
What's the Movers view?
"📈 Movers" on the Dashboard re-ranks your watchlist by the size of today's
move, up or down. The 24h column shows the same number in the normal view.
Can I listen instead of read?
Yes. The Quick Start page has a six-minute audio version, and the Manual can
be played chapter by chapter — press play and the page jumps to that section
so you can read along. Nothing downloads until you press play.
What's ✨ What's new?
Each batch of changes is announced once as a pop-up (close it and it never
returns), and the full history lives under ✨ What's new in the menu.
Why am I getting daily emails, and how do I stop them?
New accounts get a short getting-started how-to each morning for the first
week, then one tip a week for a month. Untick "✉️ Getting-started emails" in
Settings, or use the one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of them.
Alerts you asked for aren't affected.
Can I add it to my phone's home screen?
Yes — use your browser's "Add to Home Screen"; it opens like an app, straight
on the Today page. On small screens the menu folds into a single ☰ button.
What's the "v…" in the top-right / the 🔄 Update button?
That's the version of the app you're looking at. When a newer version is
deployed, a pulsing 🔄 Update button appears — click it to reload onto the
new version. (The menu also stays pinned to the top as you scroll.)
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Data & housekeeping
Where does the data come from?
Prices and candles from Coinbase, the Fear & Greed Index from
(shown as context only), and Bitcoin on-chain valuation from
BGeometrics (bitcoin-data.com) — all free public sources, credited with
thanks. None of them endorse this app; the analysis (and any mistakes) are
ours.
How do I know the data is fresh?
The "Data as of" chips at the top of the watchlist show the age of each feed
and flag ⚠ when something is stale. The signals themselves refuse to compute
on stale data, and the auto-trader refuses to act on stale signals.
Something on the Jobs page shows an error — should I worry?
(The Jobs page is admin-only.) The Job health table at the top shows the
latest run of every background job. A one-off error usually self-heals on the
next run; a persistent ● error or ● stale row is worth a look. Members never
need to think about this — everything runs automatically.