Crypto Chart Analysis: The Astrology of Finance

With the kind of confidence usually reserved for cult leaders, influencers will share their charts with their followers, usually having drawn on it with MS Paint, showing exactly where a particular coin is heading next. And their followers lap it up. Of course they do, we all do! Because even as skeptics, we have always looked to these people, to just give us the slightest inkling of what’s going to happen next. Tell us that beneath the chaos of lines and zigzags, there’s some kind of secret language, and if the prophecy of @RizCASHking22 is true, we’ll all be rich. 

But markets have never worked that way.

Unfortunately, it’s bullshit. It’s financial astrology, dressed up as analysis.

The internet, particularly crypto Twitter (or X), is teeming with self-proclaimed chart whisperers. They post intricate drawings of where they believe a cryptocurrency will go next, complete with arrows and annotations that make their forecasts look proper and scientific. They talk about price predictions as if cryptocurrencies are trains, running on predetermined tracks, instead of these weird ecosystems driven by news, speculation, and human emotion (none of which you can predict, keep in mind). These analysts are almost always wrong, but their followers hang on every word and forget, because with every new day comes some fresh ‘analysis’.

The problem isn’t that technical analysis is useless, it’s that it’s often treated as a sacred gospel when it’s really just one tool among many. Markets don’t move because of triangles and trendlines, they move because of real life events, investor psychology, and, in crypto’s case: the most ludicrous hopium you have ever seen. A chart can’t predict a sudden regulatory crackdown, or an exchange hack, or one of Trump’s batshit policies. And while some traders do profit from patterns and indicators, their success usually comes from a combination of risk management and discipline, not from blindly following squiggles on a screen.

So if these chart analyses are so unreliable, what should we as investors focus on instead? Just about everything you need to know is in the fundamentals of any given cryptocurrency. That is the actual substance behind a project. Does the project solve a real problem, or is it just hype? Is the team transparent and experienced, or are they anonymous figures making grand promises? Is there genuine adoption, or is trading volume being propped up by market manipulation? These questions matter far more than whether a coin is "testing resistance" for the fifth time this month.

Again, this isn’t to say that charts are meaningless. They can provide context, help identify trends, and even offer entry and exit points for traders who know what they’re doing. But they aren’t the crystal ball that so many bullshit artists online make them out to be. 

If you want to put a bit of time into learning about charts, that’s definitely a great idea! Start by learning key concepts like ‘support’ (price floors where buyers tend to enter) and ‘resistance’ (price ceilings where selling pressure builds). Simple tools like moving averages can highlight trends, and volume indicators show whether price movements have conviction. But remember: these are just tools, not crystal balls. More often than not, charts reflect past behavior, and aren’t future guarantees. A 'bullish pattern' means nothing if a project has weak fundamentals, regulatory risks, or no real-world use case. Technical analysis works best when combined with research into a project's team, tokenomics, and market fit. 

At the end of the day, trading will always be part skill, part luck, and part self-delusion. The best investors aren’t the ones who claim to see the future in a candlestick pattern; they’re the ones who know how to separate signal from noise. So instead of obsessing over the next Tweet from your favorite ‘analyst’, spend your time researching projects, understanding market cycles, and learning how to spot real value. 

Because unfortunately in crypto, just like in life, no one really knows what’s going to happen next.