Crypto glossary
Bart Simpson pattern
The Bart Simpson pattern is a chart shape of a sharp pump, a flat range and a sharp drop back, resembling the cartoon character's spiky hair.
The pattern looks like Bart Simpson's head in profile: a vertical move up, a flat top lasting hours or days, then a vertical move down to roughly where it started. An inverted Bart has a sharp drop, a flat bottom and a sharp recovery. Bitcoin traders noticed it frequently around 2019 and 2020, especially on weekends and overnight, when order books were thin.
Traders attribute it to low liquidity and large players: a big order or a burst of leveraged buying pushes the price through thin books, the price stalls with no follow-through, and the move reverses once stops and liquidations cluster on the other side. Some see deliberate manipulation, with whales triggering liquidations in both directions; others see the natural result of shallow markets.
The pattern has become less common on bitcoin as liquidity has deepened, but still appears on smaller tokens. It is a warning against chasing sudden moves on thin volume, since the flat top often marks where late buyers get trapped.
Example
On a quiet Sunday, BTC jumps 4% in ten minutes, trades flat for six hours, then falls back 4% within minutes. Traders share the chart with a drawing of Bart Simpson's hair.