Crypto wick detection, for the spikes that don't hold.
A long wick means price spiked and was slammed back before the candle closed — a rejected move, often the first sign of a turn. CoinBeacon checks every candle close and pings you only when a wick is genuinely out of the ordinary.
See what the candle is hiding.
A wick is the thin line above or below a candle’s body — price pushed there, and the market pushed straight back before the close. Long wicks mark rejected moves, and rejected moves often mark turning points. CoinBeacon measures every close so you hear about them in seconds.
- Upper or lower. Watch for spikes up that got sold into, or dips down that got bought straight back — either side of the candle is its own condition.
- Percentile-calibrated. No fixed size rule: the threshold adapts to each coin’s own candle history, so only wicks that are unusual for that market and timeframe count.
- Your timeframe. Run the check on 1-minute closes for scalps or daily closes for swing entries — wick detection is one of CoinBeacon’s 11 indicator alerts.
A close that leaves an upper wick 2.4× its body is the shape the alert fires on — measured on the finished candle, on the timeframe you chose.
How a wick becomes an alert
- 01
Measure on close
When a candle closes, CoinBeacon compares the wick — how far price spiked beyond the body — against the body itself. A spike that closes back inside the range leaves a long wick: the footprint of a rejected move.
- 02
Calibrate by percentile
“Long” is relative, so thresholds are percentile-calibrated against each coin’s own recent candles on your timeframe. A wick has to be genuinely unusual for that market to fire; routine noise never does.
- 03
Deliver once
The moment a wick clears the bar, one notification goes out — email, Telegram, Discord, or a JSON webhook. A per-alert cooldown keeps a choppy session from re-pinging you on every candle.
Inside the app
The exact wick-alert builder you'll use.
Three steps — market, trigger, delivery — and the builder writes your alert back in plain English before you save it. This is the real screen, not a sketch.
Alerts
Wick Alerts
Catch rejected spikes the moment a candle snaps back and closes.
Supported on 50+ exchanges
Checked on every candle close
Wick side
Minimum wick (% of candle range)
How far price spiked and got rejected.
Rejected upper wick
≥ 2.0% of range
Disable alert after first trigger
If unchecked (recommended), the alert keeps monitoring and notifies you with a cooldown between notifications.
Cooldown Period
Live setup
Your alert in plain English
Notify me by Telegram when BTC prints a rejected upper wick of 2.0%+ on the 15m on Binance.
Threshold
2.0% of candle range
Need help choosing a wick alert?
Quick guidance is available here without interrupting alert creation.
A preview of the actual in-app builder. Values shown are illustrative.
Four fields in the wick builder
How to set a crypto wick alert in about a minute.
- 01Pick the coin and the marketChoose the coin, the quote currency, and whether the candles come from Binance spot or futures — the same market you'd have the chart open on.
- 02Choose the wick sideUpper for spikes that got sold into, lower for dips that got bought straight back, or either to watch both ends of the candle. Most traders run the side that faces the level they care about.
- 03Set the timeframe and the minimum wickPick the candle interval you trade — 1-minute closes for scalps, the 15-minute or the hourly for slower work — then the minimum wick as a percentage of the candle's range. Measurement happens once the candle closes, on the finished high, low and body.
- 04Choose the channel and saveEmail, Telegram, Discord, or a JSON webhook into your own system. Leave the alert armed and it keeps watching with a cooldown between notifications — 15 minutes is the recommended default — or tick “disable after first trigger” to hear about it once and no more.
Where rejection shows up
Rejected highs, bought-back lows, and the flush you slept through.
Rejection wicks at support and resistance
A long wick into a level and back out is the market saying the level held. Watch the upper side under resistance and the lower side over support, and you hear about the test on the close instead of scrolling back to find it. The key-levels detector marks those lines — pivots, Fibonacci, round numbers, the prior ATH — if you'd rather not draw them yourself.
Hammer and shooting-star wicks, caught on the close
A hammer is a long lower wick; a shooting star is a long upper one. A wick alert measures the wick itself, so you get the ping without having to name the shape. If you want the named formations instead — engulfing, stars, dojis, each weighted by the level, volume and trend it printed in — candlestick pattern detection covers them.
Long lower wicks when a flush overshoots
Forced selling tends to overshoot: price drops through everything, fills, and snaps back inside the range before the candle closes — leaving a long lower wick and nothing else on the chart. Watching the lower side on a fast timeframe puts that print in front of you in seconds. Pair it with liquidation alerts to see the forced flow behind the candle.
Wick alerts beside your other candle-close conditions
Wick detection is one of CoinBeacon's 11 indicator alerts, so it sits alongside RSI, MACD, Bollinger and the rest — all recomputed on closed candles. A rejected wick and an overbought reading on the same pair say more together than either does alone. Run them as separate alerts on one coin and let the two messages meet in the same inbox.
Wick detection — questions
- What is a wick alert in crypto trading?
- A wick alert fires when a candle prints an unusually long wick — price spiked past the body and snapped back before the close, the signature of a rejected move. On CoinBeacon you pick the coin, the side (upper or lower), and the timeframe; the check runs on every candle close.
- What does a long wick on a crypto candle mean?
- It means price traded up to that extreme and was pushed back before the candle closed — a rejected move. An upper wick shows a push higher that sellers absorbed; a lower wick shows a drop that buyers bought straight back. Traders read long wicks as evidence that a level held, though a single wick is a clue rather than a signal on its own.
- How do I set a wick alert on Bitcoin?
- Create a wick alert, pick BTC and the market — Binance spot or futures — then set the wick side, the timeframe and the minimum wick size. Save it, and the check runs on every close of that candle interval on CoinBeacon's servers, so nothing has to stay open on your screen. The same fields work for any Binance-listed pair.
- How big does the wick have to be before the alert fires?
- You set the floor yourself: the builder takes a minimum wick as a percentage of the candle's total range — the example frame uses 2.0% on the 15-minute. Raise it and only violent rejections reach you; lower it and you'll hear about smaller tests too. On top of that floor, CoinBeacon calibrates against the coin's own recent candles, so a wick that clears your number but is routine for that market and timeframe stays quiet.
- How does CoinBeacon decide a wick is significant?
- Beyond the minimum wick size you set, thresholds are percentile-calibrated against each coin's own recent candles, so a wick has to be genuinely unusual for that market and timeframe to fire. Per-alert cooldowns stop a choppy session from re-pinging you on every candle.
- Which exchanges and timeframes does wick detection cover?
- Wick detection reads Binance spot and futures candles — the same OHLCV a Binance chart draws — and runs on the candle interval you choose when you create the alert, from 1-minute closes for scalping upward. Each alert watches one pair on one timeframe, so you can run the 15-minute and the hourly side by side on the same coin.
- How is a wick alert different from a candlestick pattern alert?
- A wick alert measures one thing — how far price spiked beyond the body, relative to the candle's range — on whatever candle prints it. Candlestick pattern detection instead names formations, single- and multi-candle, and weights each by the level, volume and trend it appeared in. Use the wick alert when all you want to know is that a move got rejected.
- Is wick detection included in the free plan?
- Yes. Every CoinBeacon feature is included free — 5 active alerts, 10 notifications per day, Google sign-in. Wick detection is one of 11 indicator alerts alongside RSI, volume, EMA, MACD, Bollinger, Stoch RSI, OBV, ADX, VWAP, and market cap, and it delivers to email, Telegram, Discord, or webhook.
More ways to watch the market
All features →- 01Price alerts— When a coin hits a price you set
- 02Percentage moves— A big jump or drop within a time window
- 03Momentum alerts— Every time a coin swings by your amount
- 04Pump & dump alerts— The instant a coin pumps or dumps abnormally fast
- 05Volume spikes— When trading suddenly jumps
- 06Indicator alerts— RSI, MACD, EMA, Bollinger & more — on any coin
Set your first alert in under a minute.
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