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// 10 · markets

Reading crypto charts

A minimum-viable vocabulary for making sense of price action — without pretending to predict it.

> The basics

A candlestick shows open, high, low, and close prices for a time period. Green = closed higher than it opened. Red = closed lower. Volume is the total amount traded in that period — big price moves on low volume are less meaningful than the same move on high volume.

> Trend and range

Markets do two things: trend (higher highs and higher lows, or the reverse) and range (oscillate between support and resistance). Most strategies boil down to identifying which mode a market is in and trading accordingly.

> What charts can't tell you

Chart patterns are stories investors tell themselves. They can be useful heuristics, but they don't predict fundamentals, news, or black swans. Position sizing and risk management matter more than pattern recognition.