This module focuses on the bigger picture: where the market is in its cycle, what environment you’re trading in, and how to adjust risk accordingly. When you understand timing and context, you stop forcing trades in bad conditions and start pressing your edge when probability is higher.
The same setup can perform very differently depending on the environment. A breakout strategy can work brilliantly in a trending market, then fail repeatedly in a choppy range. The goal is to identify the environment first, then decide how aggressively to trade.
Context is the filter that stops you from applying the right strategy at the wrong time.
Most markets move through repeating phases: accumulation, markup, distribution, and markdown. Each phase produces different price behaviour and different opportunities. Knowing the phase helps you avoid buying into late-cycle euphoria or selling into panic lows.
In crypto, these cycles can be faster and more extreme, but the underlying structure is often the same.
Timing is not about predicting tops and bottoms perfectly. It’s about increasing risk when conditions are favourable and decreasing risk when conditions are unstable. In strong trends, you can allow trades more room and take more setups. In uncertain environments, you tighten risk and become selective.
The objective is to survive the rough periods and compound in the clean periods.
Risk-on markets are characterised by strong trends, expanding volatility, and broad participation. Risk-off markets often show capital rotating into safer assets, lower conviction moves, and more fakeouts. Recognising the environment helps you decide whether to press trades or protect capital.
This is one of the simplest but most powerful filters in trading.
Crypto is highly sensitive to liquidity and risk appetite. Interest rates, inflation expectations, central bank policy, and overall market liquidity can amplify or suppress crypto trends. You don’t need to become a macro expert, but you do need to know whether the backdrop is supportive or hostile.
When liquidity expands, trends often strengthen. When liquidity tightens, volatility and reversals become more common.
A complete trader changes behaviour across the cycle. In accumulation you become patient, in markup you press trend setups, in distribution you take profits and tighten risk, and in markdown you become defensive or avoid overtrading.
The objective is simple: trade with the environment, not against it.