Systematic strategy validation · ES futures

Most backtests pass. Most strategies die in live.

Crucible reconstructs your system against order-level ES market data — real slippage, real queue position — and returns a verdict judged on return per unit of drawdown. Survival, not a flattering equity curve or a borrowed Sharpe ratio.

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What a client receives.
View the full sample report →
Specimen validation report
REF · CRU-0492
Instrument ES — order-level (MBO)
Net expectancy / trade +2.8 pt
Return per unit drawdown 1.94×
Shock-regime behaviour Losses non-clustered
Live / backtest parity Confirmed
Calibration (ECE) 0.041
Verdict
GO
Cleared for paper
The problem

A clean equity curve is not evidence.

What a cosmetic backtest tells you
Sharpe 2.1, 68% win rate.

Fitted to history, blind to fills. It flatters the curve and says nothing about what happens when the book moves against you.

What Crucible tells you
Survives — 1.94× return per unit of drawdown.

Reconstructed at order level under real slippage and queue position, then judged on the only thing that funds a live account: surviving the drawdown.

The method

Four passes from your rules to a verdict.

01

You hand over the rules — nothing else

Entry and exit logic, parameters, stop and target, the window you want tested. No data wrangling or infrastructure on your side.

You don't supply — or pay for — the market data. Crucible licenses the order-level ES feed; that expense sits with us, not you.

02

Order-level reconstruction

Your system runs against market-by-order ES data with realistic slippage and queue position — fills as the book would actually have given them, not mid-price fantasy.

03

Survival diagnostics

Return per unit of drawdown, loss clustering across shock regimes, calibration, and live/backtest parity. The measures that decide whether an edge lasts.

Any ML model is trained on at most four years of data. Older history carries a different market microstructure and regime — it dilutes more than it informs, so it's deliberately left out.

04

A verdict you can act on

A written report that ends in GO or NO-GO, with the reasoning laid out. No dashboard to interpret — a decision you can stand behind.

Engagements

Priced per strategy, not per seat.

Limited cohort
Founding client pricing

First 5 strategies (Baseline & Pro) · first 3 retainers. In exchange for detailed feedback and an optional testimonial if you're satisfied. Full refund if the report doesn't give you a clear go / no-go.

Baseline
€350 €500
/ strategy · one-off
Founding — first 5
  • Order-level ES reconstruction
  • Realistic slippage & queue position
  • Survival diagnostics
  • Written GO / NO-GO report
  • 5 business-day turnaround
Request Baseline
Pro Most chosen
€990 €1,500
/ strategy · one-off
Founding — first 5
  • Everything in Baseline
  • Guided feature engineering
  • One retest round
  • Live-audit working session
  • Parameter robustness read
Request Pro
Retainer
€1,400/mo €2,000/mo
ongoing
Founding — first 3 · rate locked 3 months
  • Continuous validation support
  • Quarterly revalidation
  • Regime-drift monitoring
  • Out-of-sample diagnostics
  • Priority turnaround
Request Retainer

Scope at launch: ES futures, intraday systems. Founding pricing is limited and ends once the cohort is full. Other instruments by arrangement.

FAQ

Questions, answered.

01 Do I have to share my source code? +

No. You share the strategy logic — entry and exit rules, parameters, stop and target structure — in whatever form is clearest. I don't need your implementation, and I don't redistribute or reuse anything you send.

02 What data do you validate on? +

On market-by-order (MBO) ES futures data — the most granular source there is. If your model was built on L1 or L2, I reconstruct that exact level faithfully from the MBO source, so you're validated at the granularity your model actually trades on — then I show you the slippage that level was hiding.

03 How is this different from my own backtester? +

Most backtesters assume optimistic fills and judge a strategy on its equity curve or Sharpe. Crucible reconstructs realistic fills from the order book and judges on return per unit of drawdown — survival. The question isn't "did it look good," it's "does the edge hold when execution and drawdown are real."

04 What instruments do you cover? +

ES futures, intraday systems, at launch. Other instruments are possible by arrangement — ask.

05 What do I actually receive? +

A written report that ends in a clear GO or NO-GO, with the reasoning and the diagnostics behind it. Not a dashboard to interpret — a decision you can act on.

06 How long does it take? +

Five business days for a Baseline validation. Priority turnaround is available on the retainer.

07 What if the verdict is NO-GO? +

Then you've saved an account. A NO-GO comes with the reasons the edge didn't survive — which is often more actionable than a GO, because it tells you where the strategy breaks.

Find out if your edge is real before the market does.

Send the strategy and the window you want tested. You'll get a scope confirmation and a turnaround date — not a sales call.

Prefer email? cruciblequant@gmail.com