The Ichimoku Cloud on real daily and weekly prices of bitcoin, ether, XRP and solana from the Bybit exchange: all five lines and the cloud ahead, every Conversion/Base Line cross and cloud breakout with what the price did next, a test of three Ichimoku rules with fees, and a calculator that shows each step.
Point at the chart or tap it to read any day, including the cloud ahead.
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Enter the highest high and the lowest low of each look-back window.
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StockCharts sums up where the indicator comes from: "The indicator was developed by journalist Goichi Hosoda and published in his 1969 book." Its name, Ichimoku Kinko Hyo, translates as one look equilibrium chart. Four of its five lines are midpoints between a highest high and a lowest low, as StockCharts lists them:
The area between the two leading spans is the cloud. StockCharts: "If the faster Leading Span A line is on top, that is bullish and the area between the two lines is shaded in green." When Span B is on top, the cloud is red. So the cloud under today's candle was computed 26 periods ago, and the cloud to the right of the last candle is built from prices that already happened. TradingView's help center is clear about what that means: "Even though data points and averages can be plotted in the future, there's nothing that can calculate anything predictive for future market trends."
Pick a coin and a timeframe, point at the chart to read any day, change the three settings, and use the calculator to see each line worked out.
At the last daily close in this data, September 26, 2026, bitcoin closed at $84,376.00, above a green cloud that ran from $71,601.85 to $75,222.65. It has closed above the cloud every day since August 18, when it broke out at $64,641.40. The Conversion Line, now $81,768.95, crossed above the Base Line, now $81,106.40, on September 24, and the cloud drawn ahead to October 22 is green, between $74,900.95 and $81,437.68.
The weekly chart disagrees. In the week of September 14, the last full week in the data, bitcoin closed at $81,130.30, below a red weekly cloud between $84,856.28 and $93,006.65. It has closed below the weekly cloud every week since the week of January 26, 2026. The weekly Conversion Line did cross above the Base Line in the week of August 31, but below the cloud. StockCharts warns that "Signals counter to the existing trend are deemed weaker."
Since the first daily cloud on January 30, 2019, bitcoin closed above its cloud on 48.6% of days, inside it on 16.0% and below it on 35.4%. Since December 2018, when the Base Line starts, it had 62 bullish and 61 bearish Conversion/Base Line crosses, which StockCharts calls "The classic signal." StockCharts writes that "bullish signals are reinforced when prices are above the cloud, and the cloud is green." On bitcoin's daily chart the difference was small: 90 days after a bullish cross above a green cloud, the price was higher 9 of 17 times, with a median change of +4.8%. After a bullish cross below a red cloud, the kind StockCharts deems weaker, it was higher 9 of 18 times, median -2.2%. Both trailed an average day: 90 days after any day with a cloud the price was higher 57.2% of the time, median +7.0%.
Breakouts above the cloud did no better. After the 59 closes above the cloud that followed a close inside or below it, bitcoin was higher 90 days later 27 of 58 times, median -1.5%. The 67 breaks below the cloud were followed by lower prices more often than an average day: higher 29 of 66 times, median -5.6%.
The test starts with $10,000 on January 31, 2019 and trades at the next day's open with a 0.1% fee and 0.05% slippage per trade.
On the other coins the cloud rule finished ahead of buying and holding for ether and solana and behind it for XRP. On weekly candles it came out ahead only for bitcoin. These results come from one stretch of history, before taxes, and do not show what the next years will bring.
Type the highest high and lowest low of the last 9, 26 and 52 periods, and the calculator returns the Conversion Line, the Base Line and both leading spans with every step. The fill button takes them from the chosen coin's real candles. For bitcoin's daily candles ending September 26, the 9-day range ran from $76,180.10 to $87,357.80, which gives a Conversion Line of $81,768.95, and the 52-day low of $62,444.10 from August 14 puts Leading Span B at $74,900.95. With Leading Span A at $81,437.68, the average of the Conversion and Base Lines, that is the cloud drawn under October 22.
StockCharts points out that 9 and 26 are the same periods the MACD uses, so the bitcoin MACD page makes a good companion. The bitcoin golden cross page follows two moving averages, and support and resistance explained covers the kind of levels the cloud is often read as.
Educational, not financial advice. The Ichimoku Cloud describes how past prices moved. It does not predict the next move or recommend buying or selling any coin.
An indicator with five lines that Goichi Hosoda published in 1969. Four are midpoints of recent highs and lows; the fifth is the close drawn 26 periods back. The two leading spans form the cloud, drawn 26 periods ahead: green when Leading Span A is on top, red when Leading Span B is.
Conversion Line = (9-period high + 9-period low) / 2. Base Line = (26-period high + 26-period low) / 2. Leading Span A = (Conversion Line + Base Line) / 2 and Leading Span B = (52-period high + 52-period low) / 2, both drawn 26 periods ahead. The calculator on this page shows each step.
On the daily chart, yes: at the last close in this data, September 26, 2026, bitcoin closed at $84,376.00, above a green cloud between $71,601.85 and $75,222.65. On the weekly chart it closed below a red cloud in the week of September 14, 2026.
In bitcoin's daily data since 2019, 90 days after a bullish Conversion/Base Line cross above a green cloud the price was higher 9 of 17 times, less often than after an average day. Holding only while the close was above the cloud beat buying and holding after fees, but only 15 of its 59 round trips made money.
No setting works best in every market. 9, 26 and 52 are the standard values, and StockCharts notes that they can be adjusted. Change the settings under the chart and every table and test updates, so you can compare settings on the same real prices.