Fear and Greed Index
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is a daily score from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed) published by Alternative.me. It combines Bitcoin's volatility, momentum and volume, social media activity, Bitcoin dominance and search trends into one number.
Fear & Greed now
- 90-day low
- 25
- Average
- 57
- High
- 78
How it works
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is published once a day by Alternative.me. It is a Bitcoin index: the inputs are measured on Bitcoin, not on altcoins. The score runs from 0 to 100 and comes with a label. Readings below about 25 are labelled extreme fear and readings above about 75 extreme greed, with fear, neutral and greed in between.
Alternative.me lists the inputs and their weights:
| Input | Weight | What is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Volatility | 25% | Current volatility and max drawdowns, against 30- and 90-day averages. Unusually high volatility scores as fear. |
| Market momentum and volume | 25% | Current momentum and volume against 30- and 90-day averages. Strong buying volume in a rising market scores as greed. |
| Social media | 15% | Volume and speed of interaction on Bitcoin-related posts. |
| Surveys | 15% | Weekly polls. Listed as paused. |
| Bitcoin dominance | 10% | Rising dominance scores as fear (money leaving speculative altcoins), falling dominance as greed. |
| Search trends | 10% | Google Trends data for Bitcoin-related searches. |
Each component is turned into a 0–100 score and combined. Alternative.me does not publish the exact scoring of each component or how the paused survey weight is redistributed, so the index cannot be recomputed from public data. The broad structure is known, which makes it more than a poll of how people feel.
A worked example
This example shows the mechanism, not Alternative.me's exact arithmetic. Assume the paused survey weight is spread proportionally over the other inputs, so the remaining weights (85% in total) are divided by 0.85.
A quiet market, with these component scores:
- Volatility 20 × 25% = 5.0
- Momentum and volume 30 × 25% = 7.5
- Social media 50 × 15% = 7.5
- Dominance 40 × 10% = 4.0
- Search trends 60 × 10% = 6.0
Sum: 30.0. Divided by 0.85: 35.3, labelled fear.
Now Bitcoin drops sharply in one day. Volatility jumps, so its score falls to 5, and momentum turns negative, so that score falls to 10. Social media, dominance and search have not changed yet.
- 5 × 25% + 10 × 25% + 7.5 + 4.0 + 6.0 = 21.25
- 21.25 ÷ 0.85 = 25.0, at the border of extreme fear
The index moved ten points on price action alone. Volatility and momentum are 50% out of the 85% of active weight, about 59% of the index, and both are calculated from Bitcoin's own price and volume. That is the main thing to understand about this number.
What it tells you
The box above shows the latest reading from Alternative.me with its 90-day range, which says more than the single number. A reading of 30 after weeks in the 70s is a different market from a reading of 30 after weeks in the teens.
The classic use is contrarian. Extreme fear has historically tended to coincide with forced selling that is largely spent, and extreme greed with crowded, leveraged positioning that is vulnerable to a correction. Sentiment also feeds on itself: fear suppresses buying and speeds up selling, which lowers price and produces more fear, and greed works the same way upward. The index captures where that loop currently stands.
What it cannot do is time the turn. Extreme fear can last for weeks while price keeps falling, as it did through several stretches of the 2022 bear market, and extreme greed can persist through a long rally. Used as context, it works as a filter: a long setup taken during extreme greed deserves more scepticism about position size, and a bearish view formed during extreme fear may already be largely priced in.
Crypto moves through these phases faster than most markets because it trades around the clock, leverage is easy to get, and much of the participant base is retail.
When it matters most
The index is most informative at extremes that persist, and when other measures agree. Extreme greed alongside high funding rates and rising open interest describes a crowded, leveraged market where a small drop can trigger a liquidation cascade. Extreme fear after a capitulation day, with volatility already falling, describes a market where sellers are running out.
It matters least in the middle of the range, and on single days. A move from 48 to 55 usually reflects a few days of price movement and little else.
SwapHunt reads it alongside Bitcoin dominance, the Altcoin Season Index and its own market regime. One sentiment number rarely describes the whole market.
Common misconceptions
"Extreme fear means buy." It describes sentiment, not the bottom. Fear can stay extreme for weeks while price falls further. Used mechanically as a buy signal, it tends to buy too early.
"It is an independent measure of mood." About 59% of the active weight comes from Bitcoin's own volatility, momentum and volume. Much of the time it restates what the price chart already shows, which makes it a confirmation indicator more than a predictive one.
"It covers the whole crypto market." The inputs are Bitcoin's. The index can sit in greed while a particular altcoin or sector is collapsing, and the reverse.
"A precise number means a precise method." The weighting of the inputs is published, but the scoring within each input is not. Similar indices from other providers often land on different numbers on the same day.