Over 100 years ago, Richard Wyckoff understood the main thing: the market is driven not by retail traders, but by 'smart money' — large players, whales, institutions.
They accumulate → accelerate → distribute → dump.
And we can see this if we know where to look.
🔥 Three fundamental laws of Wyckoff (remember them forever):
1️⃣ Law of Supply and Demand
Demand > supply → price ↑
Supply > demand → price ↓
(there’s no simpler way, but 90% of traders ignore this)
2️⃣ Law of Cause and Effect
A big move (effect) always has a cause — this is the accumulation or distribution phase. Without a completed cause, there will be no strong trend.
3️⃣ Law of Effort and Result
Volume = effort, price = result.
If the price rises on a huge volume — strength.
If it rises on low — it will soon reverse.
📊 Four market phases (the cycle repeats forever):
🟢 Accumulation - large players quietly buy up
🟢 Rising (Markup) - we enter and rejoice
🔴 Distribution - whales slowly sell at highs
🔴 Decline (Markdown) - panic, blood, sell-offs
The most valuable are detailed accumulation and distribution schemes (Phase A–E).
The most well-known accumulation elements:
SC — Selling Climax
AR — Automatic Rally
ST — Secondary Test
Spring (or Shakeout) — a false breakout down to shake out weak hands
SOS — Sign of Strength
LPS — Last Point of Support
When you see Spring + SOS on increasing volumes — this is one of the strongest buy signals in all technical analysis.
🧪 Does it work on crypto?
Yes, and very well — especially on liquid assets (BTC, ETH, SOL, large altcoins).
The more institutional capital enters crypto — the clearer the Wyckoff schemes become.
Yes, the market has become faster and more volatile, but the logic of the whales remains the same.
💡 Practical rules before entry (Wyckoff test):
Risk/reward ratio of at least 1:3
Has the previous downward trend ended?
Was there a Spring and a re-test?
Are volumes increasing on breakouts and decreasing on pullbacks?
Does the asset outperform the market (relative strength)?
If the majority of answers are 'yes' — you can enter.
⚠️Conclusion
The Wyckoff method is not just patterns and phases.
It is a philosophy of understanding who really moves the market, and the ability to read their traces through price and volume.
Whoever mastered Wyckoff stopped guessing and started seeing.
