Who Created Candle Range Theory? RomeoTPT and the Origins of CRT

Q: Where does the name "turtle soup" come from?

From Street Smarts by Laurence Connors and Linda Bradford Raschke in the mid-1990s, where it named a fade of failed 20-day breakouts. The modern CRT and ICT scene re-popularized the name for liquidity-raid reversals.

Ask who created Candle Range Theory and one name comes back: RomeoTPT. He is widely credited as the originator of CRT as a named, taught methodology — the framing of every candle as a range whose high and low hold liquidity, swept and reversed by the candles that follow. This page covers what is verifiable about RomeoTPT, CRT University, the ICT lineage behind the concepts, and why the "turtle soup" label is decades older than the scene that uses it.

RomeoTPT, the trader credited with CRT

RomeoTPT — posting under the name Raid on X — is the trader most consistently credited with formalizing Candle Range Theory and turning it into a teachable model. Threads breaking down CRT routinely open with "credit @Romeotpt." Whatever traders were doing with candle ranges before him, the name, the framing, and the popularization are widely associated with his work.

His public channels:

Treat anything outside those accounts with suspicion. The trading-education space is dense with impersonators and course resellers trading on his name.

CRT University

CRT University is the private education program widely associated with RomeoTPT: video libraries on the CRT model and a members-only community, run primarily through his Telegram presence. It is the primary first-party source for the methodology as he teaches it. If you want CRT from the source, that is where it lives — not on reseller sites.

The broader lineage: ICT and Michael Huddleston

CRT did not appear in a vacuum. Its building blocks — liquidity resting above highs and below lows, engineered stop runs, the accumulation–manipulation–distribution cycle — trace to Michael J. Huddleston, known as the Inner Circle Trader (ICT), who published his concepts publicly over many years on YouTube. CRT is commonly described as applying ICT's Power of Three to a single candle's range: the candle accumulates, manipulates through one side, then distributes the other way. The full comparison is in CRT vs ICT, and the mechanics of the raid itself are in liquidity sweeps.

"Turtle soup" is older than most traders think

The setup name did not originate with CRT or ICT. It comes from Street Smarts, the mid-1990s book by Laurence Connors and Linda Bradford Raschke, where it described fading a failed 20-day breakout — the name a joke at the expense of the trend-following Turtle traders, whose breakouts the setup trades against. The modern ICT and CRT scene re-popularized the label for liquidity-raid reversals: price runs a prior high or low, fails to follow through, and snaps back inside the range. Same spirit — fade the failed break — different mechanics. Credit for the name belongs to Connors and Raschke.

Not affiliated — read this

CRT Terminal is an independent platform. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to RomeoTPT or CRT University in any way. This page exists to credit the origin of the methodology our engine implements. For his teaching, go to his channels linked above — not to us, and not to third-party course sellers.

What CRT Terminal does with the methodology

CRT Terminal takes the CRT model and makes it mechanical. A detection engine runs on real market data and marks parent candles, sweeps, confirmations, order blocks, and signals by fixed rules — every event logged, nothing redrawn, with frame-by-frame replay and backtesting to test the model instead of trusting it. The full breakdown of the model is in What is Candle Range Theory; the terminal itself is at crtterminal.com. If you trade the model discretionarily, the engine shows you what the rules alone would have done — including the strategy variants worth testing first.

See the rules run on live data — start the 7-day trial. No card required. Pricing is public.

FAQ

Who created Candle Range Theory?

RomeoTPT is widely credited as the creator of Candle Range Theory as a named methodology. The underlying concepts — liquidity raids, accumulation–manipulation–distribution — build on the earlier work of ICT (Michael Huddleston).

What is CRT University?

CRT University is the private trading-education program widely associated with RomeoTPT, delivered through video libraries and a members-only community. It is the first-party source for his teaching of CRT.

Is CRT Terminal affiliated with RomeoTPT or CRT University?

No. CRT Terminal is an independent platform with no affiliation, endorsement, or connection to RomeoTPT or CRT University. This page exists to credit the methodology's origin.

Where does the name "turtle soup" come from?

From Street Smarts by Laurence Connors and Linda Bradford Raschke in the mid-1990s, where it named a fade of failed 20-day breakouts. The modern CRT and ICT scene re-popularized the name for liquidity-raid reversals.

Is CRT the same as ICT?

No. CRT applies ICT-lineage concepts — liquidity, manipulation, distribution — to the range of a single candle. See CRT vs ICT for the differences.

Educational content, not financial advice.