A few days before the sudden XRP breakout, an analyst from DX.Exchange published a set of two articles in the finance sphere anticipating the event.

After spotting a particularly strong inverse head and shoulders (IH&S) pattern on the daily chart for XRPUSD on September 17th, 2018, an expert trader from the premium cryptocurrency exchange DX.Exchange started paying closer attention. Yaron Mazor is a senior analyst at https://tv.dx.exchange, one of the foremost sources of news on the volatile cryptocurrency markets. He began to follow the trend closely and took notes over the day, culminating in his first article analyzing the opportunity and educating his readers on what it meant.

“Over the past 18 months, I’ve been learning and tracking the cryptocurrency market, spending at least eight hours a day looking at charts, fundamental factors, and corporate announcements. I typically look for logical reasons for a price action within the cryptocurrency market, which are based on fundamental and technical factors instead of hype. I found that at a certain point one can forecast with more that 50% success rate given clear price action” says Mazor.

The IH&S was no exception, as outlined in Mazor’s September 17th article. A strong technical cue, it usually means that price is heading upwards after the second “shoulder” is completed. Occurring during a downward trend channel, Mazor recognized the strong probability for a bounce and enlightened the traders following him. With healthy technical trends on the chart, savvy traders were focused on XRP for any indications that Mazor’s prediction would play out.

However, the shoulders of the IH&S were significant—each representing two weeks’ time—or the last half of July and first half of September, respectively. This meant that a breakout (or breakdown) after the second shoulder completed could take up to a week and would require further technical confirmation on a smaller timeframe. Sure enough, after zooming in Mazor discovered a double bottom between August 13th and September 10th, cementing the likelihood of a classic IH&S play in the near future. He was still watching XRP closely three days later on September 20th when a fundamentally bullish event further increased the chances of a price spike.

In an article written the same day, Mazor discussed how the news—Ripple’s partnership with PNC—added weight to the technical patterns already happening on its chart. The fundamental factor added momentum to the big picture and provided validation to his previous prediction of imminent explosive price action. Many know that in cryptocurrency, the news cycle drives sentiment, which in turn strongly affects the market—more so than any other asset class. The way that this XRP trade played out is a textbook example of this notion.

Though Ripple is no stranger to frequent banking and institutional finance partnerships, the news still helped to buoy the technical trends that Mazor spotted. XRP boomed from $0.26 to $0.34—that’s 23.00%–just a few days after the first article hit the press. DX.Exchange is home to analysts with extensive experience examining the nuances of the market, and there are indications that some funds are listening closely to the analysis being produced there.

With 500,000 users, DX.Exchange already has the market’s attention given its no-fee trading model. Instead, a subscription membership enables traders to get exclusive access to a place where they can exchange fiat for cryptocurrency, trade coins, and convert crypto back to fiat more freely.