Bitcoin Analysis desk: beginner's guide

Updated November 2026. Section titles below match what the desk shows on screen.

One rule first: the desk describes chart structure. It never tells you to buy or sell, and none of its percentages are win rates.

Contents

• Quick start: use it in 2 minutes
• Words you'll see
• The screen, top to bottom
• Chart tools: expand, price scale, Bollinger
• Compare overlay
• Draw tools
• Key opens and session VWAP
• Volatility ribbon
• When BTC moves
• Prior cycles
• Full history
• Share a setup
• Accumulation index
• Coinbase premium
• Options expiry
• Leverage-led
• Level memory
• Pattern glossary
• Pattern status: forming to hit
• Watch and the journal
• Alerts how-to
• Cycle heat
• Themes and display
• Keyboard shortcuts
• What the desk is NOT
• FAQ

Quick start: use it in 2 minutes

1. Look at the header. It shows the Bitcoin price (BTCUSD), the change, and the last 24h low–high.
2. Pick a timeframe with the chips: 1H, 4H, 1D, 1W. Each candle is one hour, four hours, one day, or one week. Longer timeframes move more slowly and matter more.
3. Read the What now card. It names the pattern the desk sees (for example "Double Bottom"), its status, and three numbers: Trigger, Invalid, and Target.
4. Check R:R. If the desk says "R:R from here is below 1", the possible reward is smaller than the risk from the current price.
5. Glance at Nearby levels to see the closest support and resistance.
6. Optional: tap Watch to save the setup to your journal, and turn on Alerts so the desk tells you when price crosses a level.

That's it. The rest of this guide explains each piece.

Words you'll see

• Candle / bar: one block of time on the chart, with an open, high, low, and close price.
• Close: the last price of a candle. A "daily close" is the price at 00:00 UTC (8 PM ET in summer, 7 PM ET in winter). Levels count on that timeframe's close, not on a quick wick through them.
• Support: a price where buyers have stepped in before, so falls often pause there.
• Resistance: a price where sellers have stepped in before, so rises often stall there.
• Bullish / bearish: the pattern's breakout direction is up / down.
• Trigger (breakout level): the price a pattern has to close through to count as "broken out".
• Invalidation (Invalid): the price where the pattern idea is wrong. Close through it and the setup is dead.
• Target / T1–T3: possible destinations measured from the pattern's height. T1 = 0.618× the height, T2 = the full measured target, T3 = 1.618×, each projected from the trigger. They're geometry, not predictions, and many breakouts never reach T1.
• R:R (reward-to-risk): in the desk's words, "reward to the measured target divided by risk to invalidation. Not a win rate." 2 means the possible gain is twice the possible loss. Below 1 means you'd risk more than you could gain.
• ATR (average true range): "a typical bar's dollar size." It shows how much price normally moves per candle.
• Avg range: a distance measured in ATRs, so "2 avg range away" means about two normal candles away.
• POC (point of control): "the price where the most volume traded."
• Value area (VAL / VAH): the band where most of the volume traded. VAL is its low edge and VAH its high edge.
• RSI 14: a 0–100 momentum gauge. High means it's been rising hard, low means falling hard.
• Funding: a small fee that perpetual-futures traders pay each other. Positive means longs (buyers) pay shorts, which usually means the crowd is leaning long.
• Open interest (OI): the total value of open futures positions. Rising OI means more futures positions (often leveraged) are open. The desk sums OKX, Gate, and HTX only, so it's a sample, not the market total.
• Liquidation: a leveraged trade forcibly closed because it lost too much.
• Basis: the gap between the Coinbase spot price and the OKX perp (futures) price. Positive means the perp is above spot.
• Retest: price breaks through the trigger, then comes back to touch it.

The screen, top to bottom

Header

Price, the % change (labelled "24h" or "since 00:00 UTC"), and the last 24h low–high. The header also holds the Alerts control, Copy pattern (copies the setup as text), Refresh, and the palette button for themes and display. On a computer it has a ? link (How to use). A Cleanest structure chip shows when this timeframe has the strongest structure; a Cleaner setup chip appears when another timeframe looks cleaner. The feeds link sits under the timeframe chips (on phones, next to What now / levels). The browser tab shows the live price, like "$84,123 · Bitcoin Analysis".

Timeframe chips

1H · 4H · 1D · 1W. The chart, pattern, and levels all follow the chip you pick.

Chart

Candles plus volume, with optional overlays:

• Pattern lines and the dotted measured target line.
• LAST (current price), POC, VAL, and VAH tags on the price axis.
• T1/T2 target tags and R/S (resistance/support) tags.
• NECK (neckline for head & shoulders) and INV (invalidation).
• Log scale button, which spaces prices by % instead of by dollars. Useful on 1W.
• Bollinger Bands: a 20-period average ± 2 standard deviations of closes. Off by default; turn them on in Display, with Bollinger in the ⋯ menu on phones, or by pressing B with the chart selected. While they're on, tap the BB 20 2 chip on the chart to hide them. Your choice is saved on this device.
• The 20 EMA and Bollinger Bands include the current, still-forming candle, so their last point moves until that candle closes. Earlier points use closed candles only.
• A fit control: "Fit mark, trigger, invalid, and target" zooms so all key prices are visible.

Tap Expand above the chart (in the ⋯ menu on phones) for a full-screen view; Close, Escape or Back returns to the desk, and X does too on a keyboard. If draw mode is on, Escape works through the draw sequence first (see Draw tools below) before it closes Expand. Drag the price scale on the right up to stretch the candles or down to squash them; tap Auto, double-click or double-tap the scale, or press F or 0 to return to auto-fit. On phones, Rotate in the ⋯ menu gives the chart the full screen height; choose Exit rotate in the same menu to go back. Expand does the same with timeframe chips and a Close button.

Compare overlay

An optional overlay shows how ETH or Gold (PAXG) has moved versus Bitcoin over the candles on screen. Off by default. Turn it on from Display (Compare · C: Off, ETH, or Gold (PAXG)), from the chart's Compare: Off control (tap to cycle Off → ETH → Gold (PAXG) → Off), or by pressing C with the chart selected. The overlay plots the other asset's percent change from the close of the first visible candle that has data, drawn on Bitcoin's price scale — not a second axis. ETH uses Kraken ETH/USD; gold uses Kraken PAXG/USD (a token that trades 24/7, as the chip's title notes). A chip on the chart shows the compare percent versus BTC since that first candle; tap it to hide the overlay. Changing the overlay, including with C, resets the price scale to auto-fit but leaves your time window where it was.

Draw tools

You can draw your own levels and trend lines on the chart. They are saved on this device only (up to 20 levels and 20 trend lines).

The toolbar Draw button is hidden until you turn on Draw button in toolbar · D in Display (off by default). The button itself appears on screens 768px wide or more. On phones, or without that setting, use Draw lines in the ⋯ menu, or press D with the chart selected. While the editor is loading, the bar reads Loading….

Once draw mode is on, a bar labelled Drawing tools offers Level, Trend, Alert, Delete, Clear, and Done. Tap the chart to place a level at that price, or tap two points to place a trend. Drag a line or its handles to move it; the price tag stays with the line. Alert (or A) arms a price alert on the selected level. Delete removes the selected drawing. Clear asks for confirmation: the first press shows Clear N? for four seconds, and a second press in that window wipes every drawing ("All drawings cleared"). After the window, one press arms Clear again. Done or D turns draw mode off. If you hit the cap, the desk says "Limit 20 levels" or "Limit 20 trend lines".

Escape works one step at a time: it closes the ⋯ chart menu, then cancels a half-placed trend, then deselects a drawing, then turns draw mode off, then closes Expand.

Key opens and session VWAP

Key opens and prior ranges: dotted lines mark where the day, week, and month opened, and dashed lines mark yesterday's and last week's high and low (PDH/PDL, PWH/PWL), all in UTC and from fully closed candles. To keep the chart clean, the desk shows only the nearest few. Session VWAP: the volume-weighted average price on Kraken from 13:00 to 21:00 UTC each day (roughly US daytime hours). Price above VWAP means buyers in that session have paid up on average. You can turn both off in Display.

Volatility ribbon

Under the chart, a thin bar shows how large today's daily move is compared with the past year of daily moves. Quiet / normal / wild are percentile buckets. Label always says realized, past 365d. History, not a forecast.

When BTC moves

A weekday × hour heat grid in Eastern Time. Brighter cells are hours when Bitcoin's average high–low range was larger over the last 90 days. The outlined cell is the current hour. Useful for spotting dead hours vs the US-open hour. History, not a forecast.

Prior cycles

On the 1W chart, an optional Prior cycles toggle overlays earlier halving-to-halving price paths, lined up by days since each cycle's halving. Off by default. The chart says prior cycles, not a forecast. There is no projected future line. The 1W chart's Kraken candles cover about the last two years (Kraken serves 720 daily candles); earlier weeks come from Coinbase weekly history, so cycle paths draw in full. Only if the Coinbase weekly history can't load is the early part of the latest cycle path cut off at the left edge (the chart then notes "cycle paths clipped before the first 1W candle"). The Full history control on 1W (see below) shows that same Coinbase history as candles.

Full history

On 1W, Full history (a toolbar button, and the same item in the ⋯ menu) jumps the chart back to July 2015. You can also pan or zoom left past the first live candle. Those earlier weeks come from Coinbase (BTC-USD daily candles rolled into Monday 00:00 UTC weeks). A seam labelled Coinbase marks where that history meets the live Kraken candles, and the source line adds · before {month year} Coinbase while history is in view (for example, before Nov 2024 Coinbase). History bars have no volume. They are drawn only — they are not used in ATR, RSI, EMA, Bollinger, VWAP, volume profile, or alerts. Press 0 or Fit to return to the live Kraken window.

What now card

The main card. It shows:

• The pattern name and bias (bullish/bearish).
• Trigger (or "retest" if price already broke and came back), Invalid, and Target.
• T1–T3 with the % distance to each.
• R:R, and how many avg ranges price is from invalidation.
• Adjusted reach %, historical reach %, and structure 0–100 (see the FAQ). The desk marks each one "not a win rate."
• Confluence chips ("how this tape lines up with other timeframes") and an ATR squeeze note when candles are shrinking compared with their own average.
• If nothing is clean: "No high-confluence setup — watching structure."

On phones this lives in a sheet labelled What now / levels that you tap or swipe open.

Share a setup

Tap Share setup to make an image of the current setup to post. It's stamped with the time in UTC and "not a trade call", so old images are easy to spot.

Size panel

A position-size calculator. Enter Account $, Risk $ or Risk % (what you'd lose if invalidation hits), Daily loss cap %, and Today's P&L $. If your loss today has reached the cap, it shows "Daily loss cap reached."

How sizing works: position size = the dollars you're willing to lose ÷ the distance from your entry to invalidation. A wider stop means a smaller position, never a bigger risk. Keep risk small (many traders use 1–2% of the account per trade), and know that fast moves or gaps can fill you past your stop, so the real loss can be larger than planned.

Market snapshot

A quick read of the tape: Trend, Session, Avg range (ATR 14), the high-volume price (POC), RSI 14, and Funding & OI; phones also show where price sits in its 24h range. The first rows hold the Coinbase premium chip, an event chip like "CPI in 5d · 8:30 AM ET" when a big US data release is close, the Deribit expiry chip when one is coming up, and Session VWAP 13–21 UTC. The Accumulation index is the last row.

Accumulation index

A 0–100 score, updated once per UTC daily close (00:00 UTC), that describes whether recent daily volume has come more on up-closes or on down-closes. It's estimated from where each day closed in its range, not actual trades. It uses up to three parts: Money flow (Chaikin money flow, 20 days) and OBV trend (30-day slope of on-balance volume), both from Kraken (one venue) and each ranked 0–100 against its own past 365 days, plus Coinbase premium (share of the last 14 days the premium averaged above +1 bp, with days within ±1 bp counted half, from the desk's server history). Premium counts half. It needs at least two parts, otherwise it shows a dash. Bands: 0–19 Heavy down-volume, 20–39 Leaning down-volume, 40–59 Balanced, 60–79 Leaning up-volume, 80–100 Heavy up-volume. It describes volume, not who traded or why. Descriptive, not a forecast. Hide it in Display.

Coinbase premium

How much more (or less) Bitcoin costs on Coinbase than on the offshore exchange OKX, in dollars and basis points (1 bp = 0.01%). Positive often means US buyers are paying up. It's hidden if USDT drifts off $1, a feed is stale, or an order book is thin. Colored by where it sits in its own past 30 days. Descriptive, not a forecast.

Options expiry

Options expiry: Deribit (the biggest Bitcoin options exchange) settles contracts every Friday at 08:00 UTC, with bigger monthly and quarterly expiries. Contracts settle to the Deribit index at 08:00 UTC. The chip shows the next major one. Tap it to see the strikes with the most open interest: calls above today's price and puts below it. Open interest is how many contracts are still open, not live orders. Deribit only, so it's a sample of the market. Descriptive, not a forecast.

Leverage stress

A thin strip showing how much borrowed money is in play: Perp funding (tagged warm or hot when high), OI venues (open interest), basis (rich or cheap), liquidations (Gate only, a sample, with SPIKE when they jump), and IV · RV (expected vs actual volatility). "Last known" means that feed hasn't answered, so you're seeing its last good value.

Leverage-led, spot-led, deleveraging

Appears only after a 2%+ move in 24h, and stays on until the move falls below 1.8%. Open interest is counted in BTC across OKX, Gate, and HTX, a sample of the market. Leverage-led means open interest rose 4%+ and funding agrees, so new borrowed positions drove the move. Spot-led means open interest barely changed. Deleveraging means open interest fell 4%+, so positions were closing or getting liquidated. It describes the past 24h, not what comes next.

Nearby · daily levels

The closest support and resistance prices, each with its distance in dollars and in avg ranges.

Level memory

Tap a level to see the last 3 labelled times price reached it in the past year. Held = price touched it and closed back on the same side. Broke = two daily closes through it. Wicked = price poked through during the day but closed back. Reclaimed = one daily close through it, then back. Pending = price is still at the level. n is how many visits were found. This is history, not a forecast.

Context

Collapsed by default; its header previews Fear & Greed and days to the next halving. The Daily brief sits at the top. It's a short rules-based summary built from the desk's own numbers after each daily close, 8 PM ET (7 PM in winter): trend, positioning, Cycle heat, scenarios, and the next event as a chip. While it refreshes, the header can say updating…. It has a Copy button. On phones it's collapsed with a More toggle. It's hidden on simulated feeds. If you're offline or a feed is falling back, the last good brief stays up, tagged last known.

Feeds popover

Tap feeds to see each data source and when it last updated. cached or Feed quiet means the data may be old.

Pattern glossary

The desk detects 13 classic chart patterns. Bias is the direction the pattern usually points.

For every pattern, the desk works out the levels the same way:

• Trigger = the breakout level.
• Invalid = the price that kills the idea.
• Targets = T1/T2/T3 measured from the pattern's height. The desk notes: "Target uses pattern height and structure — not a win rate."

If a pattern is forming on another timeframe too, you'll see "Lower timeframes: forming on …" or "Also on this tape."

Pattern status: forming to hit

Watch and the journal

"Watch is the setup journal. Alerts are price and tape triggers."

• Tap Watch on a setup to save it. Unwatch removes it.
• The journal holds up to 24 setups on your device, each marked Open, Target hit, Invalidated, or Expired.
• The summary line reads like "Hit 2 · Invalid 1 · Open 3", which is an honest record of how the setups you watched turned out.
• The journal is saved only in your browser, so clearing site data erases it.

Alerts how-to

1. Tap Alerts in the header. Your browser will ask for notification permission, so allow it.
2. Once it's on, the control reads Armed and shows a count.
3. What can alert you:
   • A watched setup's trigger, invalid, or price level (you can switch each one on or off for each setup).
   • A Daily close above or below a level.
   • Your own Alert at $X price.
   • A drawn level you select and arm with Alert on the drawing bar, or A.
   • Funding heat, when funding gets extreme.
   • Liquidation spike.
4. If you refused permission, the button shows Blocked. To fix it, follow the desk's tip "Enable in site settings": open your browser's site settings for the desk, allow Notifications, and reload.
5. Alerts off means nothing is armed.

Tip: on iPhone, notifications only work after you install the desk to your home screen (see below).

Cycle heat

The cycle heat card checks whether Bitcoin looks like a past cycle top. Six headline rows count toward the title (for example "0 / 6 hit"): Pi Cycle Top, MVRV Z-Score, Puell Multiple, NUPL, the 2-Year MA multiple, and US spot ETF flows. Each is safe, warm, or hit based on levels seen near past cycle tops. Two or more hits turns it into Blow-off watch. SOPR, perp funding (annualised) and Fear & Greed sit under "Noise · not the headline count" and never change the title.

The desk's own caveat: "Prior-cycle thresholds — not predictive."

Themes and display

Themes: open the palette menu to choose from 12 looks: Phosphor (green terminal look, the default), Amber, Dark, Light, Bloomberg, Colorblind-safe (no red/green), Nord, OLED black, Bitcoin Orange, Synthwave, Midnight Blue, or High Contrast (bold yellow focus outlines and thicker chart lines for easier reading). Your choice is saved on this device.

Display: Display settings sit under the theme list. You can hide cards you don't use (What now and the disclaimer always stay), pick which timeframe opens first (Cleanest structure is the default), set Motion to Match device (default), On, or Off, and tick Live tick effects · flash, grow, haptics (on by default; the note reads "Flash and grow are off while Motion is off; haptics follow this box."). You can switch the chart between candles, hollow candles, and a line; choose a Compare overlay (Off (default), ETH, or Gold (PAXG)); and show the Draw button in toolbar (off by default). You can also hide the Accumulation index. Everything is saved on this device only. Reset display puts it back.

Help (this guide): tap ? in the header (labelled How to use), or How to use in the theme menu on phones, or How to read this desk on a landscape phone. That opens /help.

Install as an app:

• Android/desktop Chrome: tap Install Bitcoin Analysis when it appears.
• iPhone: in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.

Once installed, the desk opens full-screen as "Bitcoin Analysis".

Keyboard shortcuts

On a computer or tablet with a keyboard: 1, 2, 3, 4 switch to 1H, 4H, 1D, 1W. W watches or unwatches the current setup. F fits the chart to the setup's levels. X expands or closes the chart. S makes a share image. ? opens this page. With the chart selected, C cycles the compare overlay and D toggles draw mode. Shortcuts work on screens 768px wide or more, and are off while you're typing or while a menu or panel is open.

Some keys only work once the chart is selected (click it or Tab to it).

Anywhere on the desk

With the chart selected

In draw mode (chart selected)

What the desk is NOT

• Not financial advice. It says so on screen. It describes structure and doesn't tell you to buy or sell ("Watching structure · not a trade call").
• Not a win rate. Reach %, structure score, confluence, and R:R are all labelled "not a win rate." A 64% reach doesn't mean you win 64% of the time.
• Not a prediction. Targets are measured from geometry, and the Daily brief is a rules-based summary of desk data — not a forecast.
• Not a broker. It can't place trades, and it doesn't know your positions beyond the Size numbers you type in.
• Not a substitute for your own plan. Before any trade, know your invalidation, size from it, and set a daily loss limit. Never add to a losing position to "average down."
• Not always live. Feeds can be cached, quiet, or simulated, so check feeds if a number looks off.

FAQ

Which timeframe should a beginner use?

Start with 1D and 1W. Patterns there are slower and less noisy than on 1H.

What's the difference between adjusted reach, historical reach, and structure?

Historical reach is how often this pattern type has reached its target in the past. Structure (0–100) is how clean this particular shape is. Adjusted reach scales historical reach by the geometry. None of them is a win rate.

The card says "R:R <1". What does that mean?

Price has already moved toward the target, so measured from here the distance to the target is smaller than the distance to invalidation. The header chip adds "· R:R <1", and its tooltip says "Asymmetric — R:R from here is below 1." It describes geometry, not what to do.

Why does the Daily brief look empty or say "partial"?

"Partial" means some input was stale, so that line was left out. If the header says updating…, the desk is refreshing the brief after a new daily close — give it a moment, or reload. Right after 8 PM ET (7 PM in winter) the brief may briefly be rebuilding, so reload after a few minutes.

Why are liquidations "Gate only"?

The desk currently pulls liquidations from Gate alone, so treat them as a sample, not the whole market. Funding, OI, and basis likewise come from a few venues.

Where do event times come from?

A fixed calendar in the app (CPI, FOMC, GDP + PCE, NFP), shown in ET.

Is my data shared?

Watch, journal, theme, display settings, size inputs, alerts, and drawings are stored in your browser.