Crypto Trend Template & Stages: Minervini and Weinstein on USDT Pairs

The trend template: eight rules

1. The close is above the 150-day and the 200-day simple moving averages.
2. The 150-day average is above the 200-day.
3. The 200-day average is higher than it was 20 bars ago.
4. The 50-day average is above both the 150 and the 200.
5. The close is above the 50-day average.
6. The close is at least 30% above the 52-week low.
7. The close is within 25% of the 52-week high.
8. The Relative Strength Rating is 70 or more.

A pair is on the Trend Template tab only when all eight pass and it has a full 252 bars of history behind the 52-week figures. Hover the Rules count on the page to see which ones fail.

Weinstein's four stages

The stage comes from the 150-day average and its slope over the last 20 bars. A change of more than 1% either way counts as a slope; anything smaller is flat.

• Stage 2, advancing: the average is rising and the close is above it.
• Stage 3, topping: the average is rising but the close has fallen below it, or the average has gone flat after a rise.
• Stage 4, declining: the average is falling and the close is below it.
• Stage 1, basing: the average is falling but the close is above it, or the average has gone flat after a fall.

New Stage 2 is a pair in Stage 2 today that was not in Stage 2 ten bars ago: a fresh change of state.

What changes on crypto

Every average and lookback counts daily bars, and crypto has seven a week. So on crypto:

• The 50-day average spans about seven weeks, the 150-day about five months, the 200-day about six and a half months.
• Weinstein used a 30-week average. On NSE the page's 150 trading days is about 30 weeks; on crypto, 150 bars is only about 21 weeks. The stages turn sooner than his originals would.
• The 52-week high and low are the last 252 bars: about eight and a half months.
• Rule 8 uses the crypto rating, which ranks 34 pairs against each other, measured against BTCUSDT.

Which pairs are listed, and why the list changes size

• The live USDT pairs in Unfluke's crypto archive: 34 in November 2026. A pair is live if its feed has a bar within the last three days.
• Liquid today: a 20-day average turnover above US$500,000, and the day's volume above 0.8× its own 20-day average. Pairs whose average daily range is under 0.25% (the stablecoins, almost always) are left out.

The second rule matters more on crypto than on NSE. Crypto volume drops sharply at weekends, so on a quiet day most pairs trade under 0.8× their average and drop off every list. From 1 September to 7 November 2026 the pages listed a median of 17 pairs a day: about 19 on weekdays, about 10 on Saturdays and Sundays, as few as 1 (Saturday 7 November) and as many as 32 (Friday 30 October, a sell-off). A short list on a Sunday is the volume rule at work, not a broken page. For a fuller picture, read a weekday.

On 6 November 2026, 20 pairs were listed. Nine were in Stage 2, seven in Stage 3, four in Stage 4 and none in Stage 1. One pair met all eight template rules.

INJUSDT: 8 of 8

• Close 8.289 above the 50-day (7.71), 150-day (5.91) and 200-day (5.59) averages, stacked in that order.
• 150-day slope +5.15% over 20 bars: Stage 2, as it was ten bars earlier.
• 11.98% under its 252-bar high of 9.417 (21 October) and 204.3% above its low of 2.724 (30 March).
• RS Rating 96.

Over the 68 days from 1 September to 7 November, INJUSDT passed the template on 34 of them, more than any other pair; NEARUSDT (24) and LINKUSDT (22) came next. On 16 of the 66 days with data no pair passed at all: weekends, when the volume rule shortened the list, and most days from 24 October on, as the market fell.

The near misses: 6 of 8

UNIUSDT, ARBUSDT, RUNEUSDT, ETHFIUSDT and LINKUSDT were all in Stage 2 with ratings of 78 to 93, and all failed the same two rules: the close was under the 50-day average, and 29% to 37% under the 52-week high. That pattern is a strong uptrend in a pullback. Whether the pullback ends is something the template cannot say; it only says the pair is not in the shape the template wants today.

ETHUSDT: one point short

ETHUSDT passed five rules. Its 150-day average (2,153.06) had just slipped under the 200-day (2,159.49), the close of 2,228.05 was under the 50-day (2,505.43), and its rating was 69, one point under the 70 the template asks for.

BTCUSDT: New Stage 2, 5 of 8

• Stage 2 today, Stage 3 ten bars ago, so it was on the New Stage 2 tab.
• The 150-day average was 72,336.09 and rising +1.41% over 20 bars; the close of 75,856.01 was 4.9% above it.
• But the 150 was under the 200 (73,294.76), the close was under the 50-day (82,068.15), and the rating was 66.

The next section explains how BTC came to be labelled "New Stage 2" on a week it fell.

Why BTC turned "New Stage 2" while falling

A 150-day average moves slowly, and its slope depends on which old bars are leaving the window as much as on today's price. Through late October, BTC's 20-bar slope crept from +0.83% to +0.95%: under the 1% line, after a rise, so Stage 3. On 2 November it reached +1.04%. The close was still above the average, so the label became Stage 2, and since it had been Stage 3 ten bars earlier, "New Stage 2". Between 4 and 6 November BTC fell from 80,600.01 to 75,856.01. The stage is a description of the long average, not a signal that price has turned.

A step-by-step way to use the page

1. Read the counts first. Nine pairs in Stage 2 and four in Stage 4 is a market still mostly in uptrends. A day with more in Stage 4 than Stage 2 is a different market.
2. Use the stage as a filter. Look for long ideas among Stage 2 pairs and short ideas among Stage 4 pairs, not the other way round.
3. Use the template as a quality bar. 8 of 8 is a pair in a clean uptrend, near its high, beating BTC. 6 of 8 with the close under the 50-day is a trend in a pullback: watch it, but wait for the close to get back above the 50.
4. Check what a stage is made of. Look at the 150 Slope column. +1.04% is a thin Stage 2; +5% is a clear one.
5. Find the entry elsewhere. The template says what shape the trend is in. A base or a box on the VCP & Darvas Box page gives a level to act on.

Risk per trade - risk a small, fixed share of capital on any one idea. Crypto never closes, so a stop is the only exit while you sleep; with leverage, keep the liquidation price well beyond the stop. When selling options, prefer defined-risk structures (spreads, iron condors) over naked positions.

These are ideas to study, paper-trade and backtest, not recommendations or signals, and not a promise of any result. Every condition below can fail. Crypto trades around the clock and can move sharply at any hour; leverage and options can lose more than you expect, and past behaviour says nothing certain about the next session. Size, entries, exits and risk are your own decisions.

1. Template pairs on a retest of the 50-day

• Setup: a pair on the Trend Template tab that pulls back towards its 50-day average.
• Idea: study how often a close back above the 50-day, after touching it, led to a new high within a few weeks.
• Invalidation: two closes under the 50-day, or the stage turning to 3.

2. New Stage 2 with price confirmation

• Setup: a pair on the New Stage 2 tab.
• Idea: wait for the price to agree with the label: a close above the 50-day average, and the 50 above the 150. BTC on 6 November had the label but not the price.

3. Stage 4 as a short filter

• Setup: a Stage 4 pair with a rating under 30 that has perpetual futures.
• Idea: study rallies back towards the falling 150-day average that stall under it. Shorting crypto carries funding costs and squeeze risk; size accordingly.

Test before you trade - write the rules down exactly, test them on past data (see how to backtest an options strategy and the Option Simulator, which supports crypto), then paper-trade at least 20 occurrences before committing real money. Keep a journal of every trade, including the ones you skipped.

The tabs

• Trend Template - all eight rules pass, with 252 bars of history.
• Stage 2 - above a rising 150-day average.
• New Stage 2 - Stage 2 today, not ten bars ago.
• Stage 1, Stage 3, Stage 4 - basing, topping, declining.

The filters

• Date - the newest IST day by default; signed-in users can pick an earlier one.
• Universe - All, Futures or Options.

The columns

• Symbol, LTP - the pair, its close and the day's change.
• Rules - how many of the eight pass; hover it for the list.
• Stage - 1 to 4.
• RS - the Relative Strength Rating.
• 50 SMA, 150 SMA, 200 SMA - the three averages.
• 150 Slope - the 150-day average's change over 20 bars; within ±1% counts as flat.
• From 52W High, Above 52W Low - the close against the 252-bar high and low.
• 5 Days, Chart - the last five candles, and the daily chart with the averages.

The list is sorted by rules passed, then by rating. The rows are not recommendations; a pair passing all eight can still fall the next day.

• Built for stocks. Minervini and Weinstein wrote their rules for stocks with earnings and five trading days a week. They are applied here unchanged, in bars; whether they work on 24/7 coins is something to test, not assume.
• Stablecoins. If a stablecoin passes the range rule on a given day (USDCUSDT did on 6 November, showing as Stage 3), ignore its row: a price pinned at $1 has no trend.
• One exchange, spot only. The daily bars are rolled up from Unfluke's one-minute Binance spot archive into IST days, 00:00 to 23:59. Perpetual futures volume is not counted.
• Bars, not trading days. Every lookback counts daily bars, and crypto has a bar every day of the week. A "52-week" high is the highest of the last 252 bars, which is about eight months on crypto, not a year; a 200-day average spans about six and a half months.
• Missing days. The archive has no bar for 5 August, 11 September or 5 November 2026. On those dates the pages have nothing to show, and the next day's change is measured from the day before the gap, so it covers two days.
• The newest day can be unfinished. The daily bars are topped up during the day. Until 23:59 IST the day's volume is partial, so fewer pairs pass the 0.8× volume rule in the morning than at night. Signed-in users can pick a finished date.
• End of day only. Nothing here updates within the day from live prices; the scans are recomputed from the daily bars.

Rule 8 is explained in the Relative Strength Rating guide; bases and breakouts in Stage 2 in the VCP & Darvas Box guide; crossovers of the same averages in the Moving Average Crossover guide. The NSE version is explained in the Trend Template & Stages guide. Open the page at Watch List → Trend Template & Stages (switch the market to Crypto), or sign up free to open the Market Terminal.