I spent my first three months in Solana memecoins staring at charts like they were ancient scrolls that would reveal the next 100x. I drew trendlines. I looked for head-and-shoulders patterns. I tried to apply everything I’d learned from Bitcoin and Ethereum trading.
Almost none of it worked.
Here’s what I wish someone had told me from the start: memecoin charts are a completely different animal. The patterns you’ve learned from traditional crypto trading can actually mislead you when you’re dealing with tokens that go from zero to a $5M market cap in forty minutes, then back to zero by dinner. The rules change when there’s no underlying technology, no revenue model, and no reason for a price floor to exist.
This guide is everything I’ve learned about reading memecoin charts the hard way. Not textbook technical analysis — practical, memecoin-specific chart reading that actually helps you make better decisions.
Why Memecoin Charts Are Nothing Like BTC/ETH Charts
Before we get into the mechanics, you need to understand why traditional chart analysis falls apart with memecoins. There are a few fundamental differences:
- Compressed timelines. A Bitcoin chart pattern might play out over weeks or months. A memecoin pattern plays out in minutes or hours. A “long-term” memecoin chart is three days old.
- Extreme concentration. A handful of wallets often control 30-60% of a token’s supply. One whale selling isn’t a “market signal” — it is the market.
- No fundamentals anchor. BTC has hash rate, ETH has TVL. Memecoins have vibes. There’s no natural price floor, which means support levels are essentially made up.
- Liquidity is razor thin. A $500 buy can move a chart 10%. Those “bullish candles” you see might represent a single transaction.
This doesn’t mean charts are useless for memecoins. It means you need to read them differently. You’re not looking for the same patterns — you’re looking for behavioral signatures of the people trading the token.
Candlestick Basics: What You Actually Need to Know
If you’re completely new to charts, here’s the minimum you need. A candlestick shows four prices for a given time period: open, high, low, and close.
| Candle Part | What It Shows | Why It Matters for Memecoins |
|---|---|---|
| Body (green/white) | Price went up during this period | Buying pressure — but check volume to see if it’s real |
| Body (red/black) | Price went down during this period | Selling pressure — a single large red candle often means a whale dumped |
| Upper wick (shadow) | Price reached this high but got rejected | Someone tried to sell at a higher price and couldn’t find buyers |
| Lower wick (shadow) | Price dipped this low but recovered | Buyers stepped in at lower prices — potential interest zone |
For memecoins, I mostly care about two things on a candlestick: the size of the body relative to previous candles, and the length of the wicks. Huge bodies mean aggressive, directional moves (usually a whale). Long wicks mean indecision or failed attempts to move the price.
One thing beginners miss: the timeframe matters enormously. A 1-minute chart for a memecoin is almost pure noise. I find 5-minute candles useful for active trading windows and 15-minute or 1-hour candles for getting the broader picture. Anything longer than 4 hours is usually meaningless because most memecoins don’t live that long.
Volume Bars: The Most Underrated Indicator
If I could only look at one thing on a memecoin chart, it would be volume. Not price. Volume.
Volume bars sit below the candlestick chart and show how much total trading happened during each time period. Here’s what to look for:
Volume confirms moves
A price increase on high volume means real buying interest. A price increase on low volume means someone placed a single buy order and moved the price because nobody’s trading. The second scenario is a trap.
Volume precedes price
In memecoins, a sudden volume spike before a price move is often the most reliable signal you’ll get. It means new attention has arrived — a tweet went viral, a Telegram group picked it up, or a caller featured it. When you spot a volume spike, check social channels immediately.
Declining volume is a death sentence
The single most reliable pattern I’ve found in memecoins is this: steadily declining volume over 2-4 hours almost always means the token is dying. It doesn’t matter if the price is holding steady. Once attention leaves, it’s not coming back for most tokens. This is your signal to exit or avoid entry.
If you’re using a solana token scanner like TokenRadar, pay attention to the volume trend alongside price. A token that’s green on price but fading on volume is a sell, not a hold.
The “Launch Spike” Pattern: Anatomy of the First Hour
Almost every memecoin that gets any traction follows the same pattern at launch. Learning to read it will save you money.
Phase 1: The vertical candle (0-5 minutes). The token launches and early snipers buy in. You see one or two massive green candles. The price might 10x or 50x in minutes. If you didn’t get in during the first seconds, this move is already over for you.
Phase 2: The first dump (5-15 minutes). Snipers and bundled wallets take profit. A brutal red candle appears, usually retracing 40-70% of the initial move. This is where most beginners panic-buy the “dip” thinking they’re getting a deal.
Phase 3: The decision zone (15-60 minutes). This is where the chart actually starts telling you something useful. Watch for:
- Higher lows forming: Each dip doesn’t go as low as the last one. Genuine buyers are accumulating. This is the most bullish signal in early memecoin trading.
- Flat line with no volume: Nobody cares. The hype is over. Walk away.
- Staircase down: Each small bounce gets sold into. Insiders are distributing. Do not buy.
Understanding this pattern is part of understanding the anatomy of a breakout memecoin. The chart tells you which phase you’re in — if you know what to look for.
Distribution vs. Accumulation: The Slow Bleed vs. the Quiet Build
These two patterns look deceptively similar to beginners but lead to completely opposite outcomes.
Distribution (the slow bleed)
This is what it looks like when insiders are quietly selling their bags. The chart shows a gradual, steady decline with occasional small green candles that never reclaim previous highs. Volume is moderate but consistently on the sell side. Each “bounce” is slightly lower than the last.
The psychological trap here is that the decline is slow enough to feel like consolidation. “It’s just cooling off,” you tell yourself. But if you look at the on-chain whale activity, you’ll see large holders steadily reducing their positions across dozens of small transactions to avoid crashing the price.
Accumulation (the quiet build)
This looks like a flat, boring chart where nothing’s happening. Price is range-bound, volume is low. Most people ignore these tokens entirely.
But here’s the subtle difference: during accumulation, you’ll see occasional volume spikes that don’t move the price significantly. That means someone is buying, but the selling pressure is absorbing it at roughly the same level. Over time, the available supply shrinks as it concentrates in fewer wallets.
Accumulation patterns in memecoins are rare — most tokens don’t survive long enough. When you do spot one, check the holder distribution. If the top wallets are growing while the price stays flat, that’s a genuinely interesting setup.
The “Dead Cat Bounce” in Memecoins
The dead cat bounce is a temporary price recovery after a major crash, and it’s probably the most expensive lesson in memecoin trading.
Here’s how it typically plays out: a token dumps 80-90% from its peak. A few hours later, it bounces 30-50%. People who missed the initial run see this bounce and think, “It’s coming back!” They buy in. Then it slowly bleeds to zero over the next few hours.
How to tell a dead cat bounce from a real recovery:
| Signal | Dead Cat Bounce | Real Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| Volume on bounce | Lower than the initial pump volume | Equal to or greater than initial volume |
| Social activity | Quiet or desperate “buy the dip” calls | New catalysts, new audience discovering it |
| Bounce magnitude | Recovers 20-40% of the drop | Recovers 50%+ and holds for 1+ hour |
| Holder count | Flat or declining | New holders entering |
| Liquidity | Unchanged or decreasing | New liquidity being added |
The dead cat bounce exploits the very human desire to “get back in.” The chart looks like it’s turning around, but the underlying data tells a different story. This is why knowing when to exit a memecoin is just as important as knowing when to enter.
When Charts Lie: Wash Trading and Low Liquidity Distortion
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: not everything you see on a memecoin chart is real market activity. Two major distortions mess up chart reading regularly.
Wash trading
A single entity trading with themselves to create the illusion of volume and price movement. The chart shows healthy trading activity, but it’s fake. Signs to watch for:
- Perfectly even buy and sell volumes that mirror each other
- Trading activity that happens at suspiciously regular intervals
- High volume but the price barely moves — because the same person is buying and selling at the same price
- On-chain analysis shows the same few wallets trading back and forth
This is where a memecoin screener that includes on-chain data becomes essential. A chart alone can’t tell you if volume is real. You need to look at the actual wallet-level transaction data, something you can explore with tools like Solscan.
Low liquidity distortion
When a token has very little liquidity, even small trades create massive candles on the chart. A $200 buy might create a 20% green candle. This makes the chart look wildly volatile and can trick you into thinking there’s momentum when there’s actually almost no real activity.
Always check liquidity before trusting a chart pattern. If the liquidity pool is under $10K, treat the chart as decorative, not informational. The candles are technically accurate — those price movements happened — but they don’t represent meaningful market dynamics.
Combining Chart Data with On-Chain Data
The real edge in memecoin trading comes from combining what the chart shows you (price action) with what on-chain data tells you (who’s actually buying and selling).
Here’s my basic framework:
- Chart says up + on-chain shows new wallets buying = genuinely bullish. New participants are entering, not just the same wallets trading.
- Chart says up + on-chain shows top wallets selling = exit now. The price is rising because small buyers are entering while smart money quietly exits. This is the classic distribution setup.
- Chart says flat + on-chain shows whale accumulation = watch closely. Someone with money thinks this is going somewhere. Could be a setup for a pump, or could be genuine conviction.
- Chart says down + holder count increasing = possible accumulation. More people are buying the dip and holding. If the quality of holders is good (not bots), this can precede a reversal.
A solana memecoin tracker that surfaces both chart data and on-chain metrics together, like TokenRadar, lets you make these combined reads without juggling five different tabs. The faster you can cross-reference price action with holder behavior, the better your decisions will be.
You should also learn to spot red flags and green flags quickly — the chart is one piece of the puzzle, but contract details, holder concentration, and liquidity locks tell you things no candlestick ever will.
Putting It All Together
Memecoin chart reading isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about reading the present more accurately than the people you’re trading against.
Here’s my practical checklist every time I look at a memecoin chart:
- Check the timeframe. Am I looking at 1-minute noise or a meaningful 15-minute trend?
- Read the volume first. Is it growing, declining, or spiking? Volume tells you if what you’re seeing on the price chart is real.
- Identify which phase the token is in. Launch spike? Decision zone? Distribution? Dead cat bounce?
- Look for the wicks. Long upper wicks mean sellers are active. Long lower wicks mean buyers are stepping in.
- Cross-reference with on-chain data. Who’s buying? Who’s selling? Are there new holders or just the same wallets churning?
- Check liquidity. Is there enough liquidity for the chart patterns to actually mean something?
Charts are a tool, not an oracle. They’re most useful when combined with on-chain analysis, social sentiment, and a healthy dose of skepticism. The best memecoin traders I know spend as much time reading wallet data as they do reading charts.
Start with volume. Question every green candle. And remember: in memecoins, the chart is showing you what already happened. Your job is figuring out what happens next — and the answer is almost never in the candles alone.