Gate Research has released its August 2026 Quant Report, covering both crypto and traditional finance (TradFi) markets. The big takeaway: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) both had a strong month, climbing about 25.1% and 32.6% month-over-month.
Open Interest and Funding Rates
Gate's futures data shows BTC open interest rising from roughly $4.02 billion to $4.38 billion, which works out to about a 9% gain. ETH open interest went from $2.46 billion to $2.75 billion, up around 12.1%. Funding rates for both assets stayed mildly positive through most of the stretch. That points to longs being in control. But the active trade long/short ratio remained under 1, which suggests buyers in active trades were still fairly weak versus sellers.
TradFi Market Performance
Traditional markets moved higher in August too. The NAS100 gained 4.2%, beating both the US500 and US30 indices. Large-cap tech stocks were split. No stock-by-stock details were given. The report folds Gate TradFi's US500 and NAS100 into a cross-asset observation framework, using long/short ratios, funding rates, and open interest data to read market sentiment.
Strategy Backtesting Results
The report lined up four models: moving average trend, trend momentum, Donchian breakout, and RSI mean reversion. Backtesting found that a strategy pairing the 100-day moving average with a 20-day price momentum filter produced positive cumulative returns across BTC, ETH, US500, and NAS100. The median Sharpe ratio came in at 0.64. The median maximum drawdown was 8.71%.
Forward Execution Plan
For the next one to three months, the report sets out an execution framework built around four axes: trend confirmation, volatility-based position adjustment, leverage limits, and abnormal liquidation cooling. The exact implementation details were not disclosed. Still, the approach is centered on adjusting dynamically to market conditions.