$TAO is the strangest set of numbers—not the price movement, but the volume: on September 22, volume surged to 616M, pushing the price to 318.86. In the month that followed, we never saw buying volume come close to that level again. Today, 24-hour trading volume is down to just 121M, and the price has returned to 268. It has fallen back to roughly where it started, but volume has shrunk to one-fifth of what it was that day.
There are usually two ways to interpret this. One is that the big green candle that day was a short-term, event-driven move, with smart money using the liquidity to distribute its holdings. Every rally since then has been an opportunity to reduce exposure, and the current low-volume decline is a natural pullback after distribution. The other view is that it was a large-scale rotation of holders: weak hands were shaken out, and this low-volume retest is a second bottoming attempt, with the real uptrend still to come.
I’m not in a hurry to pick a side, but here’s one thing I’ve noticed: since September 22, every time the price has tested above 300, it has lost steam, and daily volume has never again topped 350M. That’s not what strong consolidation usually looks like. The signals that would confirm either view are clear: for the first, a break below 250 followed by a weak bounce; for the second, a retest that holds above 250, followed by a high-volume bullish candle reclaiming 290.
The people having the hardest time at this level are those who entered near 300. The price isn’t far from their entry, but volume is telling them that the market has no answer for now. Do you think September 22 was distribution or a shakeout? It may be more useful to compare the price action against the two signals above than to guess whether it will rise or fall tomorrow.
There are usually two ways to interpret this. One is that the big green candle that day was a short-term, event-driven move, with smart money using the liquidity to distribute its holdings. Every rally since then has been an opportunity to reduce exposure, and the current low-volume decline is a natural pullback after distribution. The other view is that it was a large-scale rotation of holders: weak hands were shaken out, and this low-volume retest is a second bottoming attempt, with the real uptrend still to come.
I’m not in a hurry to pick a side, but here’s one thing I’ve noticed: since September 22, every time the price has tested above 300, it has lost steam, and daily volume has never again topped 350M. That’s not what strong consolidation usually looks like. The signals that would confirm either view are clear: for the first, a break below 250 followed by a weak bounce; for the second, a retest that holds above 250, followed by a high-volume bullish candle reclaiming 290.
The people having the hardest time at this level are those who entered near 300. The price isn’t far from their entry, but volume is telling them that the market has no answer for now. Do you think September 22 was distribution or a shakeout? It may be more useful to compare the price action against the two signals above than to guess whether it will rise or fall tomorrow.