Bitcoin\u2019s three-year advance may be rolling over, according to Chartered Market Technician Tony Severino, who argues that BTC has now completed a \u201ctriple bearish divergence\u201d on higher timeframes \u2013 a structure he characterises as the trend \u201cdying under the hood\u201d even as price printed fresh highs.<\/p>\n
In a video published<\/a> on November 24 and shared on X, Severino says he had to go beyond standard references to formalise the pattern. \u201cI really never heard that statement before,\u201d he admits of the term triple negative divergence. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of information on Google [\u2026] I turned to AI, turned to ChatGPT.\u201d His working definition: \u201cthree successive higher highs on price and three successive lower highs on the technical indicator.\u201d<\/p>\n A standard bearish divergence occurs when price makes a higher high while an oscillator such as RSI, MACD or Stochastic posts a lower high, signalling trend exhaustion. Extending that to three peaks, Severino says, amplifies the warning: \u201cA triple negative or triple bearish divergence is basically the market screaming, price is still drifting higher, but under the hood, this trend is dying.\u201d Later he adds, \u201cA single divergence is already a warning. A triple divergence is like yellow, orange, flashing red.\u201d<\/p>\n Severino maps this pattern onto Bitcoin\u2019s bull cycle<\/a> using the monthly chart, anchored around three key highs. The first, he argues, came around the spot ETF launch and aligned with a wave-three impulse in his Elliott Wave count. \u201cThis was our ETF launch and it was during our wave three impulse [\u2026] everybody\u2019s excited. We had the ETF launch [\u2026] strong volume, strong momentum,\u201d he says, calling it the cycle\u2019s momentum peak.<\/p>\n The second high broke that level but on weaker internals. \u201cSecond high breaks the old high. The indicator\u2019s high is weaker. This represents fewer aggressive buyers<\/a>. Early participants start taking profits. This was me. I started taking profit here,\u201d he notes. In his interpretation, that push represented a fifth wave.<\/p>\n The third high, marginally above prior peaks near $126,000, is where he sees exhaustion. \u201cOn the third high, price index is higher. Marginal new high [\u2026] I sold around $105k [\u2026] we went to $126k, so I left only a very small amount on the table to not get caught up in what comes after all this,\u201d he says. The oscillator, however, made yet another lower high: \u201cBuyers are exhausted at this point. Shorts are covering, late FOMO buyers<\/a> push it just a little bit higher. Pros use this zone to offload positions or start shorting.\u201d<\/p>\n He argues that sentiment at the top was complacent rather than euphoric. \u201cI don\u2019t think we were euphoric here. I think we were euphoric at this one [\u2026] but we were very complacent this whole time [\u2026] everybody just was like, it\u2019s going up forever.\u201d<\/p>\n Crucially, Severino insists the divergence is a setup, not a standalone trigger: \u201cYou want confirmation before acting.\u201d He points to several. First, a break of the rising trendline connecting the major swing lows: \u201cHere is our trend line and we are below. There is our confirmation.\u201d Second, loss of key moving averages such as the 20 and 50 EMA that had supported the uptrend. Third, a regime shift in weekly RSI: during the bull, it repeatedly bounced in the 40\u201350 zone, but now, he says, \u201cfalling below it is confirmation that the trend is now no longer holding.\u201d<\/p>\n