background: core strategy is focused around long QQQ in market uptrends. I am looking to use my excess liquidity as it accumulates

I read a study that said shorting gdxj leveraged fund and inverse leveraged fund would give a 1.88% monthly return rebalancing monthly, but looking back at PV at slightly newer data the CAGR doesnt justify the cost to borrow. Also if I would short just the bear fund, I would have over a 1300% drawdown (based on dust etf) which would be too large to warrant using much of my exliq plus the borrow costs would go insane. Some of the more promising short letf pairs are too market correlated. I was thinking maybe a short option strat on a noncorrelated asset such as a commodity fund to capitalize on volatility risk premium, indeed, I remain worried about volatility clustering in an equity crash. I know there is something that can be done, but it seems the market is too efficient for shorting leveraged etfs pairs for volatility decay to be profitable versus the risk

Here are the criteria needed:

• relatively low drawdown (can use low amount of exliq if relative drawdown is high)
• non market-correlated
• generates money rather than borrows many

Maybe I'm delulu, but any help would be appreciated because I am dumbfounded at this point. Additionally, if you can point me to research studies that would be helpful as well.