Is MARA Giving Us a Buy Signal?A TuneMap Preview

Some of you have been wondering what we did with our position in MARA during the recent market turmoil. The answer: nothing. As we mentioned when we initially bought MARA around $16, it was a small allocation—but we were in it for the endgame. Our thesis was simple: when it’s time for miners to shine, MARA has a high probability of leading the move, or at least ending up in pole position. From our point of view—and for several reasons discussed here—we believe MARA is best-in-class when it comes to Bitcoin miners.

We could have sold it for nearly a 100% profit, but we didn’t. Why? Because our plan has always been to ride it to the top of the Bitcoin cycle, and we still believe we haven’t seen that top yet. We wanted to play it all the way through, trusting our tools to tell us when the broader cycle peaks. The challenge was that while we had tools to signal the top for Bitcoin, we didn’t have a reliable way to identify local tops for MARA—until now. And the tool we’ve developed is currently flashing a buy signal for MARA.

TuneMap on MARA

As many of you know, we’ve been working for months on our WU Advanced offering. In addition to more sophisticated tools for assessing the market, this new package includes features tailored to individual stocks. It includes tools to flag potential momentum plays, assess a stock’s overall health, and—most relevant here—determine the most optimal way to hold a given stock from a technical standpoint. That last component is a piece of software we call TuneMap, and it’s been at the core of nearly every indicator we’ve created.

TuneMap is a tool that lets you explore how different technical indicators can be optimally configured—based on your investment objectives—for any stock listed on the NYSE or Nasdaq. No coding required, though you’ll need to interpret some graphs.

We’re aiming to release it formally in about two weeks, but for now, let’s look at what TuneMap is telling us about MARA.

Among the various technical indicators TuneMap can optimize, we’ve developed one we call MACD+. It’s everything you always wanted in a MACD (but were afraid to ask). It’s our best attempt at addressing three core limitations of the classic MACD—an indicator we love, despite its flaws:

1. Amplitude normalization via logarithmic scaling – This ensures signal consistency across time, making visual interpretations meaningful at different price levels and volatility regimes.

2. A hysteresis zone around the signal line – This filters out noise and false crossovers in sideways markets, helping reduce whipsaws without missing true trend changes.

3. Reduced lag in the signal – Classic MACDs rely on standard EMAs, which introduce delay. We use zero-lag EMAs to reduce this lag and increase responsiveness.

   
   

Here’s what TuneMap suggests as the optimal configuration for MACD+ on MARA:

• Signal Period: 22

• Fast (Zero-Lag) EMA Period: 28

• Slow EMA Period: 58

  
  

  

  
  

The upper-left graph shows the optimal buy-and-hold expression over the past five years. On the right is a Monte Carlo simulation of 1,000 new five-year trajectories generated using a precise volatility model for MARA—because past paths don’t repeat exactly, and this approach helps filter out any historical anomalies that may have inflated returns.

Encouragingly, both the historical and simulated paths are aligned, suggesting this MACD+ configuration is optimal for maximizing MARA’s returns.

This strategy outperforms buy-and-hold significantly, with an outstanding average win-to-loss ratio—across just 20 trades. But the real magic comes from defining the hysteresis zone, arguably the MACD+’s most important improvement. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, think of it as a “dead zone” around the signal line: instead of flipping bullish/bearish with every crossover, the MACD+ only turns bullish if the MACD line crosses above the signal line plus a set gap (alpha), and bearish if it crosses below the signal line minus another gap (beta). This helps reduce signal noise in choppy markets, where frequent flip-flops can erode returns and confidence alike.

For MARA, building this buffer zone around the signal line significantly improved returns—boosting performance by up to 1.5x depending on the chosen optimum. But for me, the real perk is that some of these configurations nearly halve the number of trades. The strategy I personally favor still delivers strong returns, but with fewer trades, while remaining sensitive to disconnections during downtrends—a feature I find especially relevant in the current macroeconomic environment. Here’s what we get:

The optimal configuration delivered:

• A 1.1x improvement in strategy returns over the historical period (4.76X B&H)

• near Half the number of trades (12 instead of 20)

• A 67% hit rate

  
  

Below is what this strategy looks like on a chart of the last three years.

So, today (April 22nd), this very patient but highly optimized strategy just triggered a bullish signal.

And if you had preferred either of the two other optimal hysteresis zone configurations, you would have received a green light either last week—or again today. Sure, you might argue: 'Well, that’s MACD+, a custom tool—you built it.' But to be clear, we didn’t design it around MARA specifically. In fact, today was the first time we applied it to MARA, as part of our ongoing effort to expand the database to cover every stock. That said, even a more conventional strategy—the optimal 2-EMA crossover based on five years of history and 1,000 simulated paths—is also triggering right now. This one is

• Fast EMA: 10

• Slow EMA: 18

Well, you don’t see it triggered yet because we only update the previous day’s candle overnight, when our servers are less busy—but with today’s price action, both EMAs have crossed.

Conclusion

This changes nothing for us—we held onto our MARA throughout the recent storm. If I had more cash available in the crypto-dedicated portion of the WealthUmbrella fund, I would have added to the position. Still, I thought this update might interest some of you.

Keep in mind, this is just a strategy for holding a stock—not a crystal ball. That said, it’s a highly efficient one that has performed well historically and proven robust across 1,000 simulated trajectories with similar realized volatility, using a highly accurate Glosten–Jagannathan–Runkle Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model (more on that soon).

Since MACD+ isn’t officially available yet on TradingView, I’ve uploaded a temporary version here for anyone who’d like to follow this strategy—or test the tool on other stocks.

Now that Bitcoin is waking up again, I’ll resume Bitcoin updates. I’ll likely wait for tomorrow’s candle close and the next batch of on-chain data to get a clearer picture. But something tells me we might be in for some good times.