Cost per round trip must be under 1% of position size.
<1% · judged on picks
1–5% · fine
5–20% · edge eroding
>20% · the costs ARE the strategy
Measured on real money 2026-08-08: an agent trading at 80% cost per position
lost 8 of 8 trades. Not because it picked badly — because at that cost a token must rise
4.92× just to break even. No signal survives that. The gate we built from those trades
blocks all 8.