The one-week sideways movement has never been a sign of balanced bulls and bears in the crypto world. Beneath the seemingly calm oscillation, there are hidden strategies of the main players to harvest.

In the futures market, everyone is burning money. Long positions' funding rates keep soaring, and shorts are also bleeding, but on the spot side, trading volume is quietly increasing. Retail investors see the price moving sideways and think it's a good sign of stabilization, but as soon as they rush in, they get buried alive by the chips dumped by the main players. What's the most heartbreaking? There are still 10 days until the large unlock.

The old tricks of the market makers in the crypto space are well known—first pushing the price up, then locking in positions, and finally distributing chips at high levels before the unlock. The current price has long broken through the reasonable range, and the main players have no other reason to keep pushing up unless they want to dump their chips before the unlock. The market's bearish sentiment hasn't fully exploded yet, and the long-short ratio still maintains a fragile balance—this is the window for short positions to enter.

To put it simply, the main players' fuel tanks are almost empty. When the unlock clock strikes, the sell-off will come quickly. BTC and ETH should be especially cautious, as large unlocks often happen at such times.