Reading the Week: Markup, Dominance and Narratives

BTC Weekly Markup: Reading the Market in 15 Minutes

Every Sunday, before your portfolio review, spend 15 minutes on a BTC weekly markup. This is not day-trading analysis. This is a high-level assessment of Bitcoin's trend and key levels that informs your macro view for the week ahead.

Why Bitcoin specifically? Because BTC still drives the overall crypto market. When BTC trends up, most of the market follows. When BTC breaks down, almost nothing is safe. Understanding BTC's current structure is the foundation of your weekly decision-making.

Step 1: Identify the Trend (5 minutes)

Open a BTC weekly chart (each candle represents one week of price action). You're looking for one of three conditions:

Uptrend: Higher highs and higher lows. Each week's peak is higher than the previous peak, and each dip is higher than the previous dip. The market is rising, and buyers are in control.

Downtrend: Lower highs and lower lows. Each rally fails at a lower point than the last, and each sell-off reaches a new low. Sellers are in control.

Range/Sideways: Price is bouncing between two levels without making new highs or lows. The market is undecided.

Write down which condition you see. That's your trend assessment for the week.

Step 2: Mark Key Levels (5 minutes)

On the weekly chart, identify:

Support: The price level where BTC has bounced multiple times. This is where buyers consistently step in. Say BTC is at 60 lakh and has bounced off 55 lakh three times: 55 lakh is support. The levels are only an illustration; read the current ones off your own chart.

Resistance: The price level where BTC has been rejected multiple times. This is where sellers overwhelm buyers. Say BTC keeps failing at 70 lakh: 70 lakh is resistance.

Previous ATH: Bitcoin's previous all-time high is psychologically significant. Breaking above it confirms a bull market. Failing to break it suggests the current move may be a bear market rally.

Write these levels down. They don't change often, so you're updating the same levels week to week.

Step 3: Assess the Weekly Candle (5 minutes)

Look at this week's candle:

Bullish signs: Large green body (closed well above open), long lower wick (buyers stepped in after a dip), closed above previous week's high.

Bearish signs: Large red body (closed well below open), long upper wick (sellers rejected the push higher), closed below previous week's low.

Neutral signs: Small body, roughly equal wicks, closed near where it opened. Market is undecided.

Putting It Together

Your weekly BTC markup produces three outputs:

1. Trend: Uptrend / Downtrend / Sideways
2. Key Levels: Support at ___, Resistance at ___, ATH at ___
3. This Week's Candle: Bullish / Bearish / Neutral

These three data points, combined with your macro assessment from Lessons 1-2, give you a clear picture of the market environment.

The last row is important: when macro and price action disagree, default to the macro. A BTC uptrend during contracting liquidity is more likely a bear market rally than a new bull market.

Quick Recap

• Spend 15 minutes every Sunday on a BTC weekly markup
• Three outputs: trend (up/down/sideways), key levels (support/resistance/ATH), and weekly candle (bullish/bearish/neutral)
• Combine with your macro assessment to determine your portfolio bias
• When macro and price action disagree, trust the macro
• This is a high-level assessment, not day-trading analysis

Checklist

• Open BTC weekly chart and identify the current trend
• Mark the nearest support and resistance levels
• Assess this week's candle: bullish, bearish, or neutral
• Combine with your macro view to determine your portfolio bias
• Write down your assessment in 2-3 sentences, because this becomes part of your weekly review

Common Mistakes

• Using daily or hourly charts for this exercise, when weekly is the right timeframe for portfolio-level decisions
• Overthinking the analysis, when you need direction and key levels, not a thesis paper
• Ignoring the macro context. A bullish weekly candle during QT means less than a bullish candle during QE
• Not writing it down. If you don't record your assessment, you can't review it later