Bitcoin's current market trend, behind the seemingly simple 4-hour candlestick chart, actually hides a deep game of strategy.

Last night’s spike to 3180 was immediately followed by a rebound, and today’s second attempt to push higher failed to break the previous high. None of this is coincidental. What are the major players doing? Stress testing. They use price oscillations to repeatedly probe retail traders’ psychological defenses, while simultaneously clearing out stop-loss orders.

From the market perspective, Bitcoin is tightly stuck between 3250 and 3310, forming a classic oscillating squeeze pattern. Why can’t it break through the 3300 to 3350 range? It’s simple: the big players have piled up massive sell orders here, with the order imbalance deep at -0.51%. They have no intention of pushing the price up now; they need more chips and more time to confirm the macro direction.

Speaking of macro, that’s the real variable determining the short-term trend in the crypto space. The Federal Reserve is experiencing serious disagreements over the interest rate path, which directly triggers shifts in liquidity expectations. The rise and fall of the market are fundamentally tied to liquidity—small data changes can cause the market to switch instantly from a surge to a plunge.

If employment data remains strong, expectations for rate cuts will be pushed further back, putting short-term pressure on Bitcoin. Conversely, if data weakens, a sudden expectation of rate cuts could give Bitcoin a chance to take off from the spot. This is the core contradiction right now: the direction of liquidity expectations is still uncertain, but the signals before a shift are already very clear.

Looking at the market from a different angle, the reason the 3180 spike immediately rebounded last night is because it’s a psychological barrier for bulls. Once broken, panic selling could flood the market, leading to uncontrollable consequences. Therefore, a rebound is used to create the illusion of “not falling further,” stabilizing market sentiment.

My judgment is: it’s not that prices can’t go up, but that they temporarily don’t want to. If the 3310 threshold cannot be broken in the short term, it’s likely to revisit the 3220 to 3180 zone. Essentially, this oscillation pattern is the major players collecting chips while waiting for clearer macro signals to guide the next move.

The greater the disagreement, the easier it is to mistakenly shake out retail investors, but for smart money, volatility itself breeds opportunities. The question is whether you can withstand this squeeze of a market.