True market bottoms are almost never marked by a sudden, violent bounce, but rather by weeks of agonizing, sideways boredom.
Most retail traders lose their shirts during these phases because they mistake slow consolidation for further downside, selling their bags out of sheer frustration. It is this psychological exhaustion that breaks your spirit, forcing you to watch from the sidelines when the actual recovery begins.
Having traded through both the 2018 and 2020 cycles, I have watched this exact pattern play out repeatedly. A classic bottoming structure, much like the accumulation phase we saw before $BTC broke its previous range, relies on testing the patience of retail investors. The price typically sweeps the lows to trigger stop losses, followed by a slow grind upward on declining sell volume. We saw a similar structure play out with $ETH before its major trend reversal.
Even assets like $SOL went through months of accumulation where the chart looked completely dead before the buyers stepped back in. The key is watching the volume; when it dries up at the bottom of the range, it means the sellers are finally out of ammunition.
Where do you think we are in the current market cycle?