The Sweep Failed - BTC Eyes the February 5 LowBitcoin / TetherUSBINANCE:BTCUSDTDOE_TradeYesterday we said the best trade of the weekend was no trade. Today the market confirmed why. The liquidity sweep below $65,065 did not produce a bullish reaction. No displacement candle. No reclaim. No demand stepping in. Instead, BTC printed a new low — and that single piece of information tells you everything you need to know about the current structure. What a failed sweep means in SMC terms: When price sweeps a swing low and immediately reverses with displacement, that is a liquidity grab — Smart Money collecting stops before moving in the opposite direction. That is what we were watching for yesterday. But when price sweeps a level and keeps going, it is not manipulation. It is genuine structural weakness. The market took the liquidity below $65,065 and instead of reversing, it used that fuel to push lower. The sellers are not engineering a trap — they are pressing. This is the difference between a sweep and a break. Both start the same way. The reaction tells you which one you are dealing with. No reaction means no demand. No demand means lower prices. The next target — February 5 wick low: Look left on the chart. The structural low of the recent range is the wick printed on February 5. That level represents the last point where aggressive buyers stepped in and produced a reaction. Below it sits the next major liquidity pool — stops from swing traders who used that wick as their invalidation. The market is a heat-seeking missile for liquidity. It already collected the February 12 stops. The February 5 wick is the next cluster. Price does not move randomly — it moves from one liquidity pool to the next. The path of least resistance right now is down toward that level. If it gets there and holds with displacement, that becomes a potential demand zone. If it breaks clean, the structure opens up for significantly lower prices. The trap to watch — counter-trend bounces on the 4H: Here is where most retail traders will get hurt this week. Even in a strong bearish trend, the 4H will produce bounces. Green candles. Brief recoveries into the nearest supply zone or FVG. And every single one of them will look like "the reversal" to traders who are desperate for the bottom. It is not the bottom until structure says it is. A bottom requires a bullish Break of Structure on the 4H — a higher high that breaks the sequence of lower highs and lower lows. Until that happens, every bounce is a counter-trend move inside a bearish delivery. These moves exist for one reason: to build new short liquidity (trapped longs) that fuels the next leg down. The playbook is simple: 1. Price drops to a key level 2. A bounce starts — retail calls the bottom 3. Longs pile in, placing stops below the recent low 4. Price reverses, takes those stops, and continues the trend If you have seen this pattern before, it is because it repeats on every timeframe, in every market, forever. The mechanism does not change. Only the participants who fall for it. How to navigate this: - If you are flat: Stay flat until the 4H prints a confirmed CHoCH (Change of Character) with displacement. Not a wick. Not a doji. A real structural shift with conviction behind it. - If you are short: The Feb 5 wick low is your next logical target. Trail your stop above the most recent 4H supply zone. - If you are looking to buy the dip: Ask yourself what structural evidence supports that thesis right now. If the answer is "it feels oversold" — that is not structure. That is emotion. The trend is bearish until the chart proves otherwise. Not until you feel like it should reverse. Not until your favorite influencer calls the bottom. Until the structure shifts. Disclaimer: This is educational analysis, not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always manage your risk. Tags: Bitcoin, BTC, BTCUSD, smartmoney, SMC, liquidity, bearish, priceaction, ICT, orderblocks, FVG, marketstructure, trendanalysis, stophunt, riskmanagement