Breakout or trap? The squeeze is getting tighter.

Looking back at 2022's brutal downtrend, we saw a similar pattern play out—a bearish pennant that seemed to crack upward, price punching through the resistance with real conviction. Sounds bullish, right? Except what happened next tells a different story. That breakout fizzled fast, momentum died, and the entire market cap went into free fall.

The setup looked textbook perfect. Tightening consolidation, volume building, the breakout candle clearing overhead resistance. But rallies don't always mean recovery. Sometimes they're just the market shaking out weak longs before the real collapse begins.

From a technical standpoint, false breakouts above converging pennants have consistently been among the most punishing traps in crypto. You get the initial euphoria—traders rushing in, stops getting hunted—then the reversal. By the time most people realize what's happening, price is already well below the pattern's midpoint.

The question isn't whether we break higher or lower. It's whether we've learned to respect what happens after the break.