how to draw trendlines on alts that actually matterEthereum / TetherUSBINANCE:ETHUSDTTrade_Logic_AILet’s talk about trendlines on alts – the thing everyone draws, almost nobody respects, and the market loves to bully. Alts are noisy. Wicks everywhere, liquidity thin, random 20% candles on a Tuesday night. If you draw trendlines on them the same way you do on BTC, you’ll constantly scream: “Fake breakout!” when in reality your line was trash. Here’s how I treat trendlines on altcoins so they actually mean something. 1) Touches: 2 points start a line, 3 points make it real I only take a trendline seriously after the third touch. First 2 touches are just geometry. The 3rd is the market saying: “Yep, we see this too.” On alts, I like: - For support in an uptrend: at least 3 wick touches with bodies mostly above. - For resistance in a downtrend: at least 3 touches with bodies mostly below. One random wick hitting your line is not “respecting the trendline”, it’s just the market doing cardio. 2) Angle: if it’s too steep, it’s not a trend, it’s a chase If your trendline looks almost vertical, you don’t have a trend – you have FOMO on a stick. Rough logic I use: - Slow, chill angle: often sustainable, good for swing trading. - Medium angle: still fine, but I expect a sharper correction on break. - Near vertical: I assume it breaks sooner rather than later and I don’t marry it. On alts, I try to anchor trendlines from calm areas, not from the absolute bottom wick of some liquidation nuke. If the move started with a crazy V-shape candle, I usually ignore that wick and use the next swing low/high. Otherwise the line angle becomes insane and absolutely everything looks like a fake break. 3) Fake pokes: when price “breaks” but doesn’t really Alts love fakeouts. You’ll see price pierce the trendline, everyone panics, then it closes right back above or below like nothing happened. How I filter the noise: - I trust candle closes, not just wicks On higher timeframes (4H and up), if price wicks through the trendline but closes back inside, I often treat it as: - A stop hunt - A liquidity grab - A “poke” to clean overleveraged positions - Time spent outside the line If price breaks the trendline but spends only one candle outside then instantly reclaims it on the next, that’s suspect. Real breaks usually: - Hold outside the line - Retest it from the other side - Then continue - Volume check Clean break: often comes with strong volume and follow through. Fake poke: sudden spike, no continuation, price drifts back into the old range. 4) Trendline “validity” checklist I quietly run in my head - Is it drawn on a meaningful timeframe? 5 min trendlines on alts die faster than your patience. I prefer 1H, 4H, daily to define the main structure. - Did I cherry pick points? If I had to force the line so it fits my bias, it’s not a line, it’s fan fiction. - Do other people likely see the same line? The best trendlines are the obvious ones. If you need 10 zoom levels and a ruler to notice it, probably only you care. Maybe I’m wrong, but most people don’t lose money because “trendlines don’t work” – they lose because they call every random diagonal on a 15 min alt chart a “trendline break”. Last thing: a trendline is not a religion. It’s a guide. On alts, I use them as context: - Confluence with support/resistance - Confluence with a range high/low - Confluence with volume zones One trendline alone won’t make you rich. But a clean, respected line, with proper touches, sane angle, and awareness of fake pokes – that’s already a big step up from drawing diagonals just because the chart looks empty.