Chart basics and the tools

The chart is where everyone looks first. It is useful, but it only shows what already happened. This lesson covers how to read one, then the free tools that answer the questions a chart cannot.

Candles

A candlestick chart splits time into slots, one candle per slot. Each candle shows four prices: where the slot opened, the highest point, the lowest point and where it closed. A green candle closed higher than it opened. A red one closed lower. The thin lines above and below the body are wicks: prices the coin touched but could not hold.

A long upper wick means buyers pushed the price up and sellers knocked it straight back down. On a memecoin, a row of long upper wicks often means someone is selling into every pump.

Timeframes

You choose how long each candle lasts: one second, one minute, fifteen minutes, an hour. A coin that is three hours old looks like noise on one-second candles and like three candles on hourly ones. For young coins, one-minute and five-minute candles are usually the easiest to read.

Market cap view and volume bars

Most memecoin charts can show market cap instead of price. Use it. '$0.000083' means nothing to you, while '$83,000' is something you can compare.

Under the candles sit the volume bars, showing how much traded in each slot. A price jump on big volume had real buying behind it. A jump on almost no volume can reverse just as fast.

Shapes worth knowing

• The launch spike. Most coins jump hard in the first minutes as snipers and early buyers pile in, then drop as they sell. Buying the top of that first candle is the most common newcomer loss.
• Lower highs. Each bounce peaks below the last one. Sellers are in control.
• Higher lows. Each dip stops above the last one. Buyers are stepping in earlier.
• Too-perfect candles. Rows of near-identical small candles with steady volume for hours are often a volume bot.
• The cliff. One giant red candle that erases hours of gains is often a big holder, or a whole cluster of wallets, selling at once.

The tools, and what each one answers

Two settings on that list deserve a word. Mint authority is the power to create new tokens, and freeze authority is the power to freeze tokens in your wallet so you cannot sell. On a normal memecoin both are switched off. If either is still on, someone can print supply or lock you in.

Some tokens also carry extra built-in rules, such as a fee taken every time the token moves. RugCheck flags those too.

Each tool reads the same chain through its own rules, so they often disagree on who counts as a sniper or an insider. When two tools agree that something is wrong, take it seriously.