Crypto Fear & Greed Index
Markets are moved by two emotions, and this dial measures both. When the crowd panics the index collapses toward zero; when everyone is euphoric it pins near one hundred — and the best opportunities have historically hidden at both ends.
—
loading…
Last 90 days
What actually goes into the score
The index blends several independently measured ingredients: realized volatility against its recent norms, momentum and volume versus 30- and 90-day averages, social chatter velocity, Bitcoin dominance as a proxy for defensive rotation, and Google search trends for crypto terms. Each component captures a different crowd behavior; averaging them dampens any single feed’s noise.
The practical insight is not the formula but the asymmetry it exposes: fear compresses faster than greed builds. A single liquidation cascade can drop the score twenty points overnight, while grinding uptrends take weeks to push it the same distance upward. That is why seasoned traders treat sudden collapses into “extreme fear” as an alert to start paying attention, not as an automatic buy.
Using sentiment with the rest of the dashboard
Sentiment is one leg of a three-legged read on this site: the Fear & Greed gauge tells you how the crowd feels, BTC dominance shows where capital is positioned, and the Altcoin Season Index measures how broad the risk appetite runs. When all three point the same way, the market rarely disagrees for long.
Frequently asked questions
What is the crypto Fear and Greed Index?
It is a composite sentiment score from 0 to 100 that condenses volatility, trading volume, social-media activity, Bitcoin dominance and search trends into a single reading. Zero means paralyzing fear, one hundred means euphoric greed. The methodology was popularized by alternative.me, whose feed powers this gauge.
How should I trade with the index?
Most practitioners use it as a contrarian check rather than a trigger. Extreme fear (below ~20) historically clustered near local bottoms and extreme greed (above ~80) near overheated tops, but the index can pin at extremes for weeks in a strong trend. Pair it with structure — dominance and price levels — never alone.
How often does the reading update?
The underlying score recalculates daily; this page fetches the freshest value plus the trailing 90 days every time it loads. The history strip matters more than today’s number — direction and persistence of sentiment tell you more than any single print.
What moved sentiment historically?
Exchange collapses (FTX in November 2022 pushed the index into single digits), ETF headlines, halvings and macro prints like CPI have produced the sharpest swings. Sentiment usually overshoots the event itself — which is precisely the inefficiency contrarian traders try to harvest.