There's a chart pattern in Bitcoin (BTC) that's been right 91% of the time over the past four years. That sounds like the kind of edge every trader dreams about. So why is analyst Trader Mayne pumping the brakes?
In his latest podcast, Mayne broke down the weekly Swing Failure Pattern, or SFP, which has become one of Bitcoin's most reliable technical signals since 2021. The setup is elegant: price briefly punches through a key swing high or low, sucking in breakout traders and capturing liquidity, then immediately reverses and closes back inside the previous range. Late entries get trapped, and the market pivots hard in the opposite direction.
Since March 2021, Bitcoin has printed 22 weekly SFPs. Twenty of them led to moves exceeding 10% in the reverse direction. Sixteen marked major turning points, including the 2021 cycle top and the 2022 bear market bottom. That's not luck—it's structure.
But execution matters. Mayne emphasized that traders need to identify a clear swing level first, wait for the weekly candle to close and confirm the failure, then enter on the next candle with stops positioned beyond the wick. Miss any of those steps and the edge disappears.
The Signal Isn't Active Yet
Right now, though? Bitcoin is stuck in no man's land. Mayne says a high-probability bullish SFP would require a sweep below recent lows around $85,000 or lower, followed by a weekly close back above that level. Without that confirmation, there's no actionable signal.
Crypto trader PostyXBT laid out two competing scenarios. The bullish case: Bitcoin is forming a higher low on the macro timeframe after a roughly 35% correction, which would be typical mid-cycle behavior. The bearish case: price keeps struggling despite the pullback, suggesting the four-year cycle may have already topped out.
PostyXBT noted it's hard to get genuinely bullish until Bitcoin reclaims the $98,000 to $100,000 zone. Until then, this could be a dead-cat bounce or a bearish retest in disguise. He remains constructive long-term but expects Q1 to Q2 2026 to stay murky without stronger higher-timeframe confirmation.
So the pattern works—when it shows up. The question is whether Bitcoin will actually deliver the setup traders are waiting for.