Many traders have made the same mistake—focusing on the ups and downs of candlesticks, chasing gains and selling at losses, treating volume as a decoration. It’s only when their accounts shrink and they’ve paid enough tuition that they realize: prices can be deceptive, but volume is built with real money, and that is the most honest part of the market.

A very common scene in the market is: as soon as there’s a slight increase, you hear cheers of "bull market starting," and a few points drop triggers screams of "market crash." The real answer is actually hidden behind those red and green bars. For example, if the price is rising but the volume is shrinking? That’s the market saying: this wave of upward momentum is weak, and the follow-up will be sluggish. Conversely, if the price is falling but the volume is shrinking? It’s likely just a shakeout, not a genuine exit.

I remember a phase when the entire market was overwhelmed by panic, and retail investors were busy cutting losses and fleeing. But careful observation reveals that some mainstream coins had very active trading volumes for several days at low levels, yet their prices never made new lows. At that moment, the intuition was: this doesn’t look like retail investors running away; it seems more like large funds quietly accumulating chips. The subsequent market trend confirmed this judgment—those who followed during that period later gained substantial profits.

The traces of big capital manipulation are actually detectable. During the slow accumulation phase, they often show rapid rises followed by slow declines—pushing the price up sharply, then suppressing it with a downward move. But during this decline, the volume shrinks, indicating light selling pressure, likely to be used to lower the price for accumulation. When it’s time to distribute, the pattern reverses: volume surges during the decline, then the rebound appears weak, and the volume during the rebound can’t keep up. Such rebounds are often opportunities for you to escape, not invitations to buy in.

The core is actually very simple: don’t be fooled by the show of prices; understanding the flow of money is the real skill in trading.