A price zone where several earlier drops stopped. Classical theory expects price to bounce when it comes back, and to keep falling if it breaks it.

A price zone where several earlier rises stopped. Theory expects a turn down when price gets there, and further gains if it closes above it.

Do support and resistance work?

In over 27,000 real arrivals at a level on 1-hour BTC, ETH and SOL candles since 2021, price moved the way the theory says 49.7% of the time, against 50% for chance. The only reading that stood apart from chance was a resistance breakout.

Support and resistance: what they are, how to draw them and what really happens when price gets there

Q: Is a level with more touches stronger?

Not in this data: levels with three or more touches behaved like those with two, very close to chance.

What they are

Support is a price zone where several earlier drops came to a halt. Resistance is the opposite: a zone where several rises stalled. They are the most basic tool in technical analysis, and almost everything else (patterns, breakouts, targets) rests on them.

The usual explanation is collective memory: whoever bought at a price and saw it rise tends to buy there again; whoever could not sell higher tends to sell where price stalled last time. If enough people think alike, those zones become brakes.

How to draw them

Drawing levels by hand has a trap: on a finished chart you can always find lines that "worked". To count them honestly, Kronochart uses fixed rules, the same as the app's Support and resistance tool:

Local highs and lows: a candle is a high (or low) if it is the highest (or lowest) of the 3 before and the 3 after it.
Zones, not lines: highs and lows from the last 5 days (120 one-hour candles) that sit within 3% of the price range of each other are grouped into one zone.
At least two touches: a zone is a level if two or more highs or lows form it. The more touches, the "stronger" theory considers it.
Support or resistance depending on where price comes from: arriving from above, the zone acts as support; from below, as resistance.

Most importantly: the detection does not look into the future. On each candle, levels are built only from highs and lows already confirmed before it, just as anyone would have seen them at that moment.

What classical theory says

When price reaches a level there are two readings, and the arriving candle decides which one applies:

The level holds (the candle closes without crossing the zone): at support, expect a bounce up; at resistance, a turn down.
The level breaks (the candle closes on the other side): expect the move to continue. Breaking support, further drop; clearing resistance, further rise.
Role reversal: broken support is often read as resistance afterwards, and vice versa.
More touches, more strength: theory says a level touched three or more times weighs more than one touched twice.

What happened in the real data

We looked for every arrival of price at a level on 1-hour BTC, ETH and SOL candles from January 1, 2021 to October 19, 2026: about 152,000 hours of market. There were 27,125 arrivals. Unlike chart patterns, cases here are plentiful: levels are everywhere.

To see what happened we use the same measure as all of Kronochart: from the close of the candle that reaches the level, two bands are set at 1.5 times the average hourly volatility (14-candle ATR), and we check which one price hits first within the next 48 hours. In favour means hitting first the band the theory expects for that reading.

1-hour Binance candles. Data computed on October 19, 2026. Not counted: 157 cases where both bands were hit within the same hour.
Reading	Cases	In favour	Chance	Difference
Support holds (rise expected)	11,998	48.5%	49.6%	−1.1 points
Support breaks (drop expected)	1,610	51.7%	50.4%	+1.3 points
Resistance holds (drop expected)	11,919	49.9%	50.4%	−0.5 points
Resistance breaks (rise expected)	1,598	54.5%	49.6%	+4.9 points
All	27,125	49.7%	50.0%	−0.3 points

The chance column is what happened at more than 30,000 arbitrary moments in the same data, measured the same way, with the same mix of expected rises and drops as each row.

How to read it:

Overall, levels did not anticipate direction: 49.7% against 50.0% for chance, with so many cases that the margin of error is only ±0.6 points. The same in BTC (49.7%), ETH (49.6%) and SOL (49.7%).
Buying at support that holds, the most popular reading, came out slightly below chance: 48.5% against 49.6% (±0.9 points).
The only reading that clearly stood apart from chance was a resistance breakout: when a candle closed above, price kept rising 54.5% of the time against 49.6% (±2.4 points). A small edge and, like any statistic of the past, it may not repeat.
More touches did not help: two-touch levels went in favour 49.9% of the time and three-or-more-touch levels 49.4%.

This does not mean levels are useless: they organise the chart, show where an idea is invalidated and where to place the stop. What the data says is that, on their own, they do not tell where price will go. Figures are recomputed whenever the data grows.

One case that worked and one that failed

BTC/USDT, June 2, 2021. Six-touch support. The candle arrives, closes without breaking it and price rises to the upper band in 7 hours: the textbook bounce.

SOL/USDT, April 10, 2021. Five-touch support, same reading, and price fell to the lower band in 7 hours. It happens almost as often as the other: knowing that is part of seasoning.

Test yourself with 3 real cases

Three arrivals picked at random from all of them, in their real proportion of hits and misses. You will see the chart up to the candle that reaches the level, with the zone marked (it was known at that moment), and no date. Decide and see what happened.

Preparing the cases…

Historical data. Education, not financial advice. Getting it right here guarantees nothing in the real market.

Common mistakes

Drawing levels in hindsight. On a finished chart there is always a line that "worked". Draw only with what could be seen at the time.
Thinking in exact lines. Levels are zones: price rarely stops at the same cent.
Taking the bounce for granted. Buying at support is the most repeated reading and, in this data, it did not beat chance.
Believing more touches is safer. In the data, a level with many touches behaved no better than one with two.
Mistaking a wick for a breakout. A breakout is a close on the other side of the zone, not a spike that comes back.

Managing risk with levels

Use the level to decide where your idea is invalidated: a little beyond the zone, not right on it, where stops tend to get hit.
Size the position from that distance, so a miss costs a small, fixed part of the account.
With leverage, check that the liquidation price is well beyond the stop.
Compare what you risk with what you expect to gain. If the next level is closer than your stop, the trade does not pay even if you are right half the time.

Check what you have learned

Five questions about this article. Each answer is marked straight away and explained.

1. Price reaches a zone from above. What is the zone acting as? Resistance Support None until it breaks

2. When is a level considered broken? When a wick crosses it When it is touched three times When a candle closes on the other side of the zone

3. In BTC, ETH and SOL since 2021, how did supports that held behave? They bounced about half the time, without beating chance They bounced almost always They broke almost always

4. Which reading stood apart from chance in this data? The bounce at a support with many touches A resistance breakout None, they all worked almost always

5. Where should the stop go if you buy at support? A little below the zone, not right on the line Exactly at the support price No stop: the support already protects you

Frequently asked questions

What is support?

A price zone where several earlier drops stopped. Theory expects a bounce when price comes back, and further falls if it breaks.

What is resistance?

A zone where several earlier rises stopped. Theory expects a turn down on arrival, and further gains if price closes above it.

Do they work?

In 27,125 real arrivals in BTC, ETH and SOL since 2021 they went the way the theory says 49.7% of the time, against 50.0% for chance. Only a resistance breakout stood somewhat apart from chance.

Is a level with more touches stronger?

Not in this data: those with three or more touches went in favour 49.4% of the time and two-touch ones 49.9%.

Does broken support become resistance?

That is the role-reversal idea. It is a common reading, but it is worth checking case by case rather than taking it for granted.

Sharpen your reading of levels

On Kronochart, automatic support and resistance is in the free plan. You can review arrivals at levels in sessions of 10, with your own chart, polish what fails and check over the months whether your reading beats chance.

Practise with real moments