The crypto fear and greed index turns market sentiment into a single number between 0 and 100. This guide covers what that number measures, how the score is put together, and what a fear or greed reading does and does not tell you.
What is the crypto fear and greed index?
What is the crypto fear and greed index?
The crypto fear and greed index is a daily sentiment score for the Bitcoin market, published by Alternative.me on a scale of 0 to 100. Low means traders are fearful, high means they are greedy, and every reading carries one of five labels: extreme fear, fear, neutral, greed, or extreme greed.
Alternative.me publishes the labels but not the exact cut-offs between them. The readings themselves show where the lines sit. Across 3,130 daily readings from 1 February 2018 to 31 August 2026, anything at 25 or below has been labelled extreme fear, 26 to 46 fear, 47 to 54 neutral, 55 to 75 greed, and 76 or above extreme greed.
Two things stand out in that history. The index has never printed below 5 or above 95, so the ends of the scale are theoretical rather than lived. And the middle of the range is where it spends most of its time: fear covers 29% of all days, greed 26%, extreme fear 24%, neutral 13%, and extreme greed just 9%. Those shares are rounded to the nearest point, so they total a little over 100. Adding the two fear bands together, the market this index describes has been frightened on slightly more than half of all the days it has measured.
August 2026 shows how quickly the number travels. The index read 25 and extreme fear on 6 August, stayed in fear every day through 19 August, flipped to greed on 20 August, peaked at 74 on 25 August, and sat at 62 on 31 August, the day these readings were taken.
How is the crypto fear and greed index calculated?
How is the crypto fear and greed index calculated?
The published methodology lists six inputs, each scored separately and then blended using fixed weights. Five of the six are currently active. Volatility accounts for 25% of the result and market momentum and volume for another 25%. Social media contributes 15%, surveys 15%, Bitcoin dominance 10%, and search trends the final 10%.
Each input is a different angle on the same question. Volatility compares current price swings and drawdowns against their 30 and 90 day averages, so unusual turbulence registers as fear. Momentum and volume compare current buying against those same averages, so heavy buying into a rising market registers as greed. Social media tracks how much Bitcoin related posting is happening and how fast people engage with it. Dominance is Bitcoin's share of total crypto market value, which tends to rise when traders retreat from smaller coins. Search trends looks at the volume and wording of Bitcoin searches, where a surge in worried phrasing counts as fear.
One of those six is not currently running.
One input is switched off
The surveys component, a weekly poll of traders, is marked "currently paused" by Alternative.me, which still lists it at 15%. It does not publish how that share is handled while the poll is off, so treat the weights above as the documented design rather than an exact recipe for today's reading.
What does a fear or greed reading actually tell you?
What does a fear or greed reading actually tell you?
Most traders read the index as a contrarian gauge. The logic is the old market line about being fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful: extreme fear is taken to mean sellers have overshot, extreme greed that buyers have. That interpretation is the reason the number gets quoted at all.
It is worth knowing what the score is built from before leaning on it. Volatility and momentum together make up half the weight, and both are calculated from price and volume. A large part of the index is therefore a restatement of what the price has just done, presented as a mood reading. When the index climbs, it climbs mostly because the price did. It describes the market it measures, and describing is not the same as pointing ahead of it.
Where the reading earns real attention is what tends to build underneath it. Long stretches of greed are when leverage accumulates, because a rising price makes borrowed positions look cheap to carry. Crowded leverage is what turns an ordinary fall into a fast one: positions that cross their maintenance level get closed automatically, and each forced sale pushes the price toward the next one. Read that way, a greed reading is a prompt to check your own exposure and what a sharp move would do to it, not a prompt to trade.
Sentiment is not a timing tool
The index held extreme greed for 76 days straight from November 2020 to January 2021, and extreme fear for 74 days straight in mid 2022. It tells you what conditions look like now, never when they will change.
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FAQ
Is the crypto fear and greed index the same as the stock market one?
No. The stock market version, published by CNN, blends seven equally weighted indicators of stock market behaviour, among them options activity, junk bond demand, and the VIX volatility index. The crypto index uses entirely different inputs and weights them unequally. Both run from 0 to 100 and share a name, and that is where the overlap ends.
How often does the index update?
Once a day. Alternative.me has published a daily reading since 1 February 2018, with only two short gaps in more than eight years, so the index is a continuous daily series rather than a live ticker.
Does the index cover all cryptocurrencies?
It covers Bitcoin. Alternative.me states the index is Bitcoin focused for now, with separate indices for other coins planned. Because Bitcoin is the largest single share of crypto market value and other coins often follow its direction, the reading gets quoted as a whole market mood, but the inputs behind it are Bitcoin's.
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