ETH has been stuck stubbornly around 2,700 these past couple of days, with trading volume drying up like a ditch about to run dry.
These stuck-in-the-middle levels are the most frustrating.
I’m afraid to get in early in case it dumps, but if I chase the breakout, I’m afraid it’ll be a fakeout.
Actually, the big players aren’t much more eager than you are. They’re all playing dead, waiting for someone else to show their hand first.
My thinking is simple: I’m not going to sit around while it churns near 2,700. I’ll patiently wait for it to push higher. If it still looks weak when it reaches a key resistance zone, I’ll short it outright.#ETH
Red Pants came to have tea with me.
When we were talking about the National Day holiday, I mentioned that I was reviewing September’s trading performance on Binance Square and in our groups. I also checked in with some group members and found that many people lost money—and it really wasn’t because they hadn’t put in the effort.
Quite the opposite—some people are trying too hard.
You watch the charts for more than ten hours a day, switching between the 5-minute, 15-minute, and 1-hour charts, with indicators all over the screen—and still end up losing money.
The reason is simple: they don’t see the underlying structure.
She said, “I’ve been learning piano lately. I found a one-on-one teacher, and I follow along with video lessons every day.”
I asked, “How’s the learning going?”
She said, “It’s a long story. The teacher is a concert-level performer, and the lessons follow the exam-grading route: drilling finger technique and memorizing sheet music every day.”
I said, “Adults learning piano like this—it’s just going through the motions, isn’t it?”
She asked, “Then how should I learn?”
I said, “If you know a little about arranging, you’ll know that behind a bar of music there’s really just a chord. And what’s a chord? It’s like a complete word.”
If you don’t understand the underlying structure, all you see are densely packed notes. It’s like someone who can’t read looking at Chinese characters: they can only try to memorize them stroke by stroke.
She said, “That sounds way too hard to memorize.”
I said, “That’s why you have to look at the underlying structure first.”
You bring over a sheet of music with hundreds of notes crammed onto it, and it’s enough to make your head spin. But when you break it down, the whole song may just cycle through four chords.
It’s like having the words “healthy body” written in huge letters on a piece of paper.
People who can read just glance at it and move on.
If someone who can’t read tries to count the horizontal strokes here and the diagonal strokes there, how could they ever memorize it all?
She laughed and said, “People running training businesses are anxious these days, too.”
I asked, “What are you anxious about?”
She said, “AI teaching has had a huge impact. Clients can go home, scan a QR code in an app, and learn on their own. Who would still pay to sign up with an institution?”
I said, “Repetitive mechanical tasks are bound to be replaced sooner or later.”
What’s truly valuable has never been making people memorize strokes over and over. It’s helping them understand what the character actually is.
If you can’t see the underlying structure of something, whatever you do is like a blind person trying to understand an elephant by touch.
She nodded and said that a lot of people manage their energy the same way: they can’t distinguish what matters most, want to do everything, and think everything is important.
I said, “You still haven’t grasped the main thread.”
For example, I have plenty to do every day, too, but writing the article has to come first—it’s my livelihood.
I have to work out too. For me, this isn’t a hobby; it’s more like taking medicine.
As for the rest—friends dropping by, people inviting me to dinner, one-off social obligations—I’ll go if I can; if not, so be it.
We only have so much energy in a day. There can’t be that many “important things.”
She pointed to the continuous glucose monitor on my stomach and said, “So you wear this every day to see the underlying structure, too?”
I said, “More or less.”
A lot of people’s understanding of food is stuck at the level of “notes,” too.
Plain congee is good for your stomach, steamed buns are light, and noodles are easy to digest. They all sound pretty healthy.
But put on a continuous glucose monitor, then eat a bowl of plain congee and two steamed buns. Watch the curve shoot up, and you won’t need anyone to explain much.
Especially when you’re trying to get older family members to eat less high-carb food—explaining the theory ten times won’t help.
Letting them see the curve for themselves once is more effective than anything else.
Often it’s not that people won’t take advice; they simply don’t have a framework in their heads for judging things.
They only see a bowl of congee and a steamed bun.
They don’t see what happens after the food enters the body.
Trading is the same, really.
Today, the ETH chart is covered in “notes” everywhere you look.
On the 15-minute chart, one bullish candle, one bearish candle, a golden cross, a death cross—volume suddenly picks up, then immediately dries up again.
The more intently you watch, the easier it is to get swept along.
Zoom out a little, and it’s really not that complicated.
The big-picture structure right now is a tight trading range with no clear winner.
Around 2780–2800 above, there’s a pile of positions from people who chased the previous high, so selling pressure is significant.
And around 2630–2676 below, there’s been steady buying support.
Lately, price has simply been grinding back and forth in this narrower range of 2680–2740.
If you keep opening trades around 2700, staring at the red and green 15-minute candles and guessing where the next one will go, that’s no different from memorizing the strokes in a piano score.
Exhausted, and still unable to grasp the main point.
Then look at trading volume.
When price tested the bottom, trading volume actually kept getting smaller.
That suggests there isn’t much capital willing to enter the market decisively at this level. Supply is shrinking, but demand to push prices higher isn’t particularly strong either.
Everyone is waiting.
Everyone wants the other side to show their hand first.
This kind of market looks boring, but it’s often when things can suddenly get volatile.
It could plunge down in a sudden spike, shake out the bulls, then bounce back up.
Or they could fake a move up first, lure in the breakout chasers, then slam the price back down.
Either could happen.
So since we’ve already figured out this range, there’s no need to guess in the middle of it.
My bias is still bearish today.
But that doesn’t mean you should short straight from 2700.
I’ll wait for it to come up to me.
If price rebounds to around 2740–2750, reaches the edge of the range and starts to stall, volume fails to pick up, each bullish candle struggles more than the last, or it starts leaving consecutive long upper wicks—
That’s when it gets interesting.
That means it looks like the price is rising, but in reality, no one is willing to keep buying at these levels.
Trying a short from this kind of level has a completely different rationale.
If I’m wrong, 2780 is right above. I’ll admit it and get out.
Right. First watch 2676 below, then 2630.
That’s the point of having a framework.
It’s not about predicting every single candlestick.
It’s about showing you where it’s worth making a move—and where you don’t even need to look.
Tactical bias: short
Entry: 2745–2755 range. Wait for signs of stalling, shrinking volume, or clear upper wicks near resistance before entering. Don’t rush in just because you see one bullish candle.
Hard stop: 2785. A decisive breakout above that level means the original range-based thesis is invalidated. Admit you’re wrong and get out—don’t hold on.
Take profit: trim the position around 2676, then manage the rest around 2630.
Strategy validity: 6 hours after publication. If there’s no opportunity, let it go.
If you can’t make sense of the situation, just sit back and have some tea.
Don’t keep using your own hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s patience.