At 9:00 AM, two traders sit down at their computers.
The first trader opens charts, sees price moving, and starts hunting for trades. He's scanning timeframes, drawing trendlines, checking Twitter for what's hot. By 9:15, he's already taken two trades-one winner, one loser.
The second trader has been working since 7:30 AM. She's reviewed overnight price action, marked key levels, analyzed funding rates and liquidation data, checked the macro calendar, and written down exactly what she's looking for today. At 9:00, she opens her charts. At 9:15, she's done nothing-because nothing has matched her plan yet.
By the end of the day, the first trader is down $800 and frustrated. The second trader is up $2,400 with three precise entries.
The difference isn't intelligence. It's preparation.
Crypto trades 24/7, so there's no traditional "market open" like stocks have. But there are high-activity windows-times when volume surges, volatility spikes, and opportunities concentrate. Professional traders don't stumble into these moments. They prepare for them obsessively.
This guide reveals exactly what professional traders do before their main trading session begins.
The market doesn't care how smart you are. It doesn't care about your strategy, your indicators, or your trading record. The only thing that matters is whether you're prepared for what happens today.
Professional traders understand this truth: preparation is where edge is created.
Consider what happens without preparation:
| Behavior |
Consequence |
| No key levels marked |
You enter trades in no-man's land |
| Unaware of overnight moves |
You're surprised by price action everyone else expected |
| No macro awareness |
Fed announcement catches you off guard |
| No written plan |
You make decisions based on emotion |
| No mental prep |
First loss triggers tilt |
Now consider what preparation enables:
| Behavior |
Benefit |
| Key levels pre-marked |
You know exactly where to look for entries |
| Overnight analysis complete |
Nothing surprises you |
| Macro calendar checked |
You avoid trading through news events |
| Written plan |
You execute with discipline |
| Mental rehearsal done |
You handle losses calmly |
The math is simple: prepared traders make better decisions. Better decisions compound into better results. Better results compound into career longevity.
Every hour of preparation multiplies the effectiveness of your trading hours.
Professional pre-market preparation covers five essential areas:
- Technical Analysis - What did price do overnight? Where are the key levels?
- On-chain Data - What is smart money doing? Where's the liquidity?
- Market Structure - Where are the stops? Where's the imbalance?
- Macro Context - What external factors could move markets today?
- Mental Preparation - Are you in the right headspace to trade?
Skip any of these pillars and you're trading with partial information. That's like playing poker without looking at half your cards.
Let's break down each pillar in detail.
Crypto never sleeps, but traders do. While you were resting, price was moving. Your first job is to understand what happened.
Mark the high and low since your last active trading session:
- Overnight High (ONH) - The highest price reached
- Overnight Low (ONL) - The lowest price reached
- Overnight POC - Point of Control (where most volume traded)
These levels matter because many traders use them as reference points. Breaks above ONH or below ONL often trigger momentum.
Zoom out before you zoom in:
- Weekly: Are we trending or ranging? Near key levels?
- Daily: What's the prevailing structure? Higher highs or lower lows?
- 4H: Where are we within today's context?
Your intraday trades should align with higher timeframe structure. Fighting the trend is a losing proposition.
Mark the levels that matter most:
| Level Type |
Why It Matters |
| Previous Day High/Low |
Widely watched by institutional traders |
| Weekly Open |
Strong bias level for the week |
| Major S/R |
Historical levels where price reversed |
| Round Numbers |
Psychological significance ($60K, $3K, etc.) |
| VWAP |
Institutional execution benchmark |
| Moving Averages |
20, 50, 200 EM As/SM As on higher timeframes |
Don't mark 50 levels. Mark 5-7 that actually matter. Clarity beats comprehensiveness.
Are any clear patterns forming?
- Head and shoulders (or inverse)
- Triangles (ascending, descending, symmetrical)
- Flags and pennants
- Double tops/bottoms
- Divergences on momentum indicators
Don't force patterns where they don't exist. If the chart is messy, it's messy. That's useful information too.
Traditional markets don't give you this data. Crypto does. Use it.
Funding rates tell you who's paying whom in the perpetual futures market:
- Positive funding: Longs pay shorts. Market is leveraged long.
- Negative funding: Shorts pay longs. Market is leveraged short.
- Extreme funding: Often precedes reversals as crowded positions get liquidated.
Check funding across major exchanges (Binance, Bybit, OKX, dYdX). If funding is extremely positive and price is at resistance, be cautious about longing.
Open interest measures the total number of outstanding contracts:
- OI increasing + price increasing: New longs being added. Bullish.
- OI increasing + price decreasing: New shorts being added. Bearish.
- OI decreasing + price increasing: Shorts closing. Bullish but weaker.
- OI decreasing + price decreasing: Longs closing. Bearish but weaker.
Large OI increases at key levels often indicate positions that will need to be liquidated-fuel for moves in the opposite direction.
Where is Bitcoin and Ethereum moving?
- Inflows to exchanges: Bearish. Suggests selling pressure coming.
- Outflows from exchanges: Bullish. Coins being moved to cold storage.
- Stable coin inflows: Bullish. Dry powder entering to buy.
These flows don't predict exact timing but provide context about near-term supply and demand dynamics.
Large wallets moving significant amounts often precede volatility:
- Whales depositing to exchanges → Potential selling
- Whales accumulating from exchanges → Potential bullish
- Large transfers between unknown wallets → Watch and wait
Markets are designed to liquidate the majority. Understanding market structure helps you avoid being on the wrong side.
Liquidation data shows where stops are clustered:
- Long liquidation clusters: Price drops there, longs get liquidated, creating cascading sell pressure.
- Short liquidation clusters: Price rises there, shorts get liquidated, creating cascading buy pressure.
Markets gravitate toward liquidity. If there's a large cluster of long liquidations at $58,000, the market has incentive to push price there. Plan accordingly.
While order books can be spoofed, they still provide useful information:
- Large bid walls: Potential support (or smart money absorbing sells)
- Large ask walls: Potential resistance (or smart money distributing)
- Thin order book areas: Price can move quickly through these zones
Look for imbalances. If there are 10x more asks than bids above current price, expect resistance.
CVD tracks the difference between buying and selling volume:
- CVD rising: More aggressive buying than selling
- CVD falling: More aggressive selling than buying
- Divergence: CVD and price moving opposite directions often signals reversal
If price is making new highs but CVD is making lower highs, buyers are exhausted. Prepare for a pullback.
Crypto doesn't trade in a vacuum. External factors move markets.
Check for scheduled events that could impact markets:
| Event Type |
Potential Impact |
| FOMC meetings |
Major volatility pre/post announcement |
| CPI/PPI data |
Inflation readings move risk assets |
| Jobs reports |
Employment data affects Fed policy expectations |
| GDP releases |
Economic health signals |
| Treasury auctions |
Can impact dollar and risk appetite |
Simple rule: don't enter new positions 30 minutes before major announcements. Let the volatility settle, then trade the reaction.
Bitcoin often moves inversely to the dollar:
- DXY rising: Usually bearish for BTC and crypto
- DXY falling: Usually bullish for BTC and crypto
Check DXY position relative to key levels. A DXY breakout could mean crypto breakdown.
Crypto increasingly correlates with Nasdaq and S&P during risk-on/risk-off regimes:
- Stocks pumping: Crypto often follows
- Stocks dumping: Crypto often follows (and often harder)
Check US futures before your crypto session begins. If S&P futures are down 2%, expect crypto volatility.
A brief scan for relevant news:
- Regulatory announcements
- Exchange hacks or issues
- Major protocol updates
- Influential figure statements
Don't get lost in the news cycle. Five minutes maximum. You're looking for material events, not opinions.
All the analysis in the world won't help if your mind isn't right.
Before trading, honestly evaluate:
- Sleep quality: Did I sleep well? (Below 6 hours = reduced performance)
- Stress level: Am I carrying stress from outside trading?
- Physical state: Am I hydrated, fed, alert?
- Emotional state: Am I anxious, overconfident, frustrated?
If multiple red flags appear, consider taking the day off. There's always tomorrow.
Look at your last 5-10 trades:
- Are you in a winning streak? (Watch for overconfidence)
- Are you in a losing streak? (Watch for revenge trading)
- Are you following your rules? (If not, why not?)
Your recent history affects your psychology. Acknowledge it rather than pretending it doesn't.
Visualize scenarios before they happen:
- "If price reaches my entry, I will take the trade without hesitation."
- "If my stop gets hit, I will accept the loss and move on."
- "If I feel FOMO, I will step away from the screen."
- "If I hit my daily loss limit, I will stop trading immediately."
Athletes visualize their performance before competing. Traders should too.
Write down your focus for the day:
- "Today I will only trade setups from my watchlist."
- "Today I will wait for confirmation before entering."
- "Today I will honor every stop loss."
These aren't affirmations-they're commitments. Writing them makes them real.
Convert all of this into a systematic checklist you can run through every day:
- Reviewed overnight price action
- Marked overnight high/low/POC
- Checked weekly and daily timeframes
- Identified 5-7 key levels for today
- Noted any forming patterns
- Checked for divergences
- Checked funding rates across major exchanges
- Reviewed open interest changes
- Checked exchange flow data
- Scanned for significant whale movements
- Reviewed liquidation heat map
- Checked order book for imbalances
- Analyzed CVD for divergences
- Identified high-liquidity zones
- Checked economic calendar for today
- Reviewed DXY position
- Checked US futures / global markets
- Scanned for material news
- Assessed sleep and physical state
- Reviewed recent trading performance
- Completed mental rehearsal
- Set trading intentions for the day
- Written trade plan with specific setups
Here's how to fit all of this into a structured 90-minute pre-market routine:
| Time |
Activity |
Duration |
| 0:00 - 0:10 |
Physical prep (water, light movement) |
10 min |
| 0:10 - 0:25 |
Technical analysis (overnight review, levels) |
15 min |
| 0:25 - 0:40 |
On-chain data (funding, OI, flows) |
15 min |
| 0:40 - 0:50 |
Market structure (liquidations, CVD) |
10 min |
| 0:50 - 1:00 |
Macro context (calendar, DXY, news) |
10 min |
| 1:00 - 1:15 |
Mental preparation (assessment, rehearsal) |
15 min |
| 1:15 - 1:30 |
Write trade plan (setups, levels, rules) |
15 min |
90 minutes might seem like a lot. But it's actually efficient:
- No time wasted during trading hours on analysis that should've been done earlier
- No emotional decisions because you already have a plan
- No surprises because you've reviewed all relevant data
- No FOMO because you know exactly what you're looking for
The traders who skip preparation spend more total time on analysis-just spread throughout the day when it's less effective.
You don't need expensive tools to prepare properly, but the right tools save time.
| Purpose |
Tool |
| Charts |
TradingView (free tier) |
| On-chain basics |
on-chain metrics platforms free charts |
| Funding rates |
derivatives data platforms |
| Liquidation data |
derivatives data platforms |
| Economic calendar |
Investing.com, Forex Factory |
| News |
Coin Desk, The Block |
| Purpose |
Tool |
| Advanced on-chain |
on-chain metrics platforms Pro, exchange flow analytics platforms |
| Whale tracking |
large-flow alert services Premium, on-chain analytics platforms |
| Liquidation maps |
derivatives data platforms Pro, Hyblock |
| Order flow |
Bookmap, Exocharts |
| Sentiment |
sentiment analytics platforms, The TIE |
Rather than juggling 10 tools, consider platforms that aggregate multiple data sources:
- Real-time signal aggregation
- AI interpretation of market data
- Automated preparation workflows
The goal is reducing friction. Every minute saved on tool-switching is a minute available for actual analysis.
At least 60-90 minutes before you plan to trade actively. If your primary session starts at 9:00 AM, begin preparation at 7:30 AM at the latest.
Do a full preparation before your primary session. For secondary sessions, a condensed 15-20 minute refresh is sufficient-update levels, check what changed, reassess mental state.
Swing traders need less frequent preparation but more depth. Instead of daily 90-minute routines, a thorough 2-hour weekend analysis plus 20-minute daily check-ins may be more appropriate.
That's a successful day of preparation. The best trade is often no trade. Your plan filtered out low-quality setups, which is exactly what it's supposed to do.
Generally, no. Trading without preparation is gambling. If you genuinely don't have time, either skip that day or do a condensed version covering only the most critical elements (key levels, open positions, mental state).
Track your metrics. Are you taking fewer impulsive trades? Is your win rate higher on days with full preparation? Are you managing drawdowns better? The data will tell you.
If you can only do one thing: mark your key levels and write down exactly what setups you're looking for. Having a specific plan prevents more bad trades than any other form of analysis.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: there's no secret strategy that makes money consistently. There's no indicator that perfectly predicts price movement. There's no guru with all the answers.
What there is: preparation.
The traders who make money year after year aren't smarter than everyone else. They're more prepared. They've done the work before the market opens that allows them to execute calmly and precisely when opportunities appear.
Every professional in every field understands this:
- Lawyers prepare their cases before stepping into court
- Surgeons study the procedure before picking up the scalpel
- Athletes train for months before the competition
Trading is no different.
The minutes you spend preparing are not time away from trading. They are the foundation that makes profitable trading possible.
Skip the preparation, and you're gambling.
Do the preparation, and you're trading.
What if your pre-market analysis was already done when you woke up?
Thrive aggregates the data professional traders need-funding rates, open interest changes, whale movements, liquidation levels, smart money flows-and interprets it with AI so you understand what it means.
Instead of checking 10 different tools and spending 90 minutes on analysis, you get:
- Smart market signals - Overnight activity summarized with AI interpretation
- Key levels and liquidity zones - Pre-identified based on market structure
- Whale activity alerts - Know when large players are moving
- Funding rate dashboards - See market positioning at a glance
- One-click trade journaling - Track execution against your plan
The best traders don't work harder-they work smarter. Thrive gives you institutional-grade preparation in a fraction of the time.
Your edge starts before the market opens. Let Thrive give you that edge.
→ Start Trading with Professional Preparation
