Crypto buying setups, tested
Four common ways traders buy a drop: buying the dip, the liquidity sweep, the selling climax and the capitulation candle. Each is written as one exact rule, tested on a year of 15-minute candles against buying at a random time with the same target and stop, and recorded live since 10/16. Here's how each did, coin by coin.
Dip from the 4-hour high
Price falls from its 4-hour high by 1.5 times its usual hourly move: the classic buy-the-dip, scaled to each coin. One alert per dip.
On ETH over the past year, price reached the target before going wrong in 54 of every 100 of these (171 in all). Buying at a random time with the same target and stop did it 46 times in 100.
Flush and reclaim
A fast drop pokes under the last 24 hours' low, then a 15-minute candle closes back above it: sellers broke a level and couldn't hold it.
On ETH over the past year, price reached the target before going wrong in 40 of every 100 of these (223 in all). Buying at a random time with the same target and stop did it 32 times in 100. On ZEC it did worse than random.
Volume spike, then calm
In a dip, one candle trades 3 times its usual volume and the next is calmer and holds its low: a burst of selling that dried up.
On ZEC over the past year, price reached the target before going wrong in 83 of every 100 of these (162 in all). Buying at a random time with the same target and stop did it 75 times in 100. On ETH it did worse than random.
Capitulation
A big, fast drop (3 times the usual hourly move, mostly within 90 minutes) on the day's heaviest volume, ending in a long lower wick: panic selling that ran out.
On ETH over the past year, price reached the target before going wrong in 54 of every 100 of these (127 in all). Buying at a random time with the same target and stop did it 47 times in 100. On BTC it did worse than random.
How to read the numbers
"40 in 100" means: of every 100 times the setup appeared, price reached the target before a 15-minute close under the line 40 times. The bar to beat is random timing: buying the same coin at a random time, with the same target and stop. A setup is proven on a coin when it beat random timing over a full year there; still being tested when it hasn't yet (or there isn't a year of data); not offered when it did worse.
The edges are real but small: a few more times in 100 than random timing. They help with timing, not with size.
Words to know
- Candle
- one bar of the chart: where price opened, its high, its low and where it closed over a stretch of time. These pages use 15-minute candles.
- Close
- a candle's last price. A rule here counts closes, not wicks: price can poke past a line and come back within the candle.
- Wick
- the thin part of a candle above or below its body: how far price reached before coming back.
- Support and resistance
- a price where buyers stepped in before (support, below price) or sellers did (resistance, above).
- Usual hourly move
- the average size of a coin's hourly candles, so a rule fits each coin and each day. Traders call it ATR (average true range).
- Target
- the price where the setup counts as having worked, if price gets there first.
- Wrong if
- the line under which the setup has failed: a 15-minute candle closing under it. A stop-loss order usually goes there.
- Random timing
- the bar a setup has to beat: buying the same coin at a random time, with the same target and the same wrong-if line.
How we test · The full track record
Free, no sign-up. The price, the line it's wrong under and the target, the moment the candle closes.