Why Every Trend Begins and Ends With LiquidityEvery trend in crypto begins and ends with liquidity. Before a trend can move with force, the market must collect the stop orders that provide the fuel for expansion. These orders sit above equal highs, below equal lows, inside inefficiencies, and around obvious retail breakout levels. Price does not trend because sentiment magically aligns.
It trends because the market clears liquidity at one side of the structure and then expands toward the next pool. The earliest phase of any trend usually starts with a sweep: price reaches beyond a key high or low, triggers stops, absorbs the resting orders, and immediately snaps back. This wick is the first sign that the breakout attempt failed and that larger participants have used the liquidity to take positions.
Once liquidity is taken, the market shifts into structural progression. Higher highs and higher lows form not because traders collectively decide to buy, but because the market now has trapped sellers below the sweep, providing momentum as price moves toward the next logical liquidity target.
Structure becomes the visible footprint of this process. Impulse legs show aggression after liquidity collection, and pullbacks tend to remain orderly because the directional objective has not yet been completed.
Every trend is essentially a journey from one liquidity pool to the next, with structure simply describing how that journey unfolds.
The end of a trend is equally tied to liquidity. A trend rarely dies from weakening momentum alone. Instead, it typically completes when price reaches a major pool of opposing liquidity, often equal highs in an uptrend or equal lows in a downtrend.
The final move into that level is usually fast and dramatic, designed to trigger breakout traders while simultaneously running the stops of those holding late in the trend. Once the liquidity is collected, the market loses incentive to continue and snaps back inside the level, exposing the sweep as a terminal event rather than a continuation. This reversal wick marks the end of one trend and the beginning of the liquidity cycle in the opposite direction.
From there, the process repeats. Liquidity is taken. Structure shifts. Displacement confirms intention. A retest provides the entry. And the new trend begins by targeting the next liquidity pool in line.
When traders understand this cycle, trends become far easier to read. Direction is no longer based on hope, indicators, or isolated candles. It is built on recognising how liquidity motivates movement and how structure validates that movement.
Liquidity shows where the market wants to travel, structure shows how it gets there, and together they form a practical framework for identifying when trends are forming, when they are maturing, and when they are preparing to reverse.
