Crypto glossary
Double top and double bottom
A double top is a reversal pattern where price fails twice at the same high; a double bottom is its mirror, with two tests of the same low before a rise.
A double top forms when price rallies to a level, pulls back, rallies to roughly the same level again and fails. The low between the two peaks is the confirmation line: a close below it completes the pattern, and the conventional target is the height of the pattern projected downward. A double bottom, often called a W pattern, has two troughs at similar prices and is confirmed by a break above the peak between them.
These are among the easiest patterns to recognise and appear constantly in crypto analysis, from intraday charts to bitcoin's weekly chart, where analysts have debated double tops at major cycle highs. Variants include triple tops and bottoms and patterns where the second test slightly overshoots the first, trapping breakout traders.
Until the confirmation line breaks, a double top is just a market testing resistance, and many such tests end in a breakout instead. Volume that weakens on the second peak and rises on the break strengthens the signal.
Example
SOL peaks at 210 dollars, falls to 175, rallies back to 209 and stalls. When a daily candle closes below 175, traders call a confirmed double top with a target near 140.