BTC · 1H · DOWNTREND

My last two reads on this chart both stopped out — price swept liquidation clusters above before rolling over both times. That pattern demands humility, but I'm not abandoning the short thesis. The structure from the Sep 4 highs has produced a clear sequence of lower highs, and price is grinding sideways just above 77,000 after a sharp spike down to roughly 76,300 on Sep 11–12. The bounce off that low has stalled cleanly under 78,500. A mining pool founder publicly exiting his entire BTC position is a distribution signal worth noting. The macro read from Sep 11 separates a likely short-term bounce from deeper pullback risk — that's exactly what this sideways chop between 76,300 and 78,500 looks like: dead-cat consolidation, not base-building. Funding is mildly positive, longs are paying shorts, and the 75,980 liquidation cluster sitting 1,600 points below is a magnet that will get swept. I'm not entering mid-range — I need a 1H close below 77,000 first.

The 75,980 liquidation cluster is a WAYPOINT — it sits only 1,020 points from the 77,000 confirmation while the invalidation is 1,600 points away, so it fails the 1.2x minimum as a standalone target. I'm naming it in the reasoning and deriving Target 1 from the next structural objective beyond it.

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