Market regime
The market regime is SwapHunt's trend label for Bitcoin. It is bullish when price is above its 20-period EMA on 12-hour candles and that EMA has risen more than 0.5% over five candles, bearish in the mirror case, and neutral otherwise.
Market regime now
- 90-day low
- −0.99%
- Average
- 0.66%
- High
- 6.93%
How it works
Many "market regime" indicators are black boxes or a matter of judgement. SwapHunt's is a fixed rule applied to public data, so anyone can recompute it.
The input is Bitcoin's closing price on Binance 12-hour spot candles. Each candle covers 00:00–12:00 or 12:00–24:00 UTC, and the regime is updated when a candle closes. On those closes SwapHunt calculates a 20-period exponential moving average (EMA), which covers about ten days. An EMA gives recent closes more weight than older ones: each new close moves the average by 2 ÷ 21, about 9.5%, of the distance between the close and the previous EMA.
Two numbers come out of that:
- Price vs EMA: how far the latest close is above or below the EMA, in percent.
- EMA slope: how much the EMA has changed over the last five candles (two and a half days), in percent.
The regime needs both to agree:
| Regime | Price vs EMA | EMA slope over 5 candles |
|---|---|---|
| Bullish | Above | Rising more than 0.5% |
| Bearish | Below | Falling more than 0.5% |
| Neutral | Anything else | Anything else |
Neutral therefore covers two different situations: a flat EMA (slope between −0.5% and +0.5%), and price on the opposite side of an EMA that is still trending, which is what the first candles of a possible reversal look like.
A worked example
The EMA stands at $60,000. Five candles ago it was $59,700. The next 12-hour candle closes at $62,100.
- New EMA: 60,000 + (62,100 − 60,000) × 2 ÷ 21 = 60,000 + 200 = $60,200
- Price vs EMA: (62,100 − 60,200) ÷ 60,200 = +3.16%
- Slope: (60,200 − 59,700) ÷ 59,700 = +0.84%
Price is above the EMA and the slope is above +0.5%, so the regime is bullish.
The next candle closes at $58,000, and the EMA five candles back is now $59,800.
- New EMA: 60,200 + (58,000 − 60,200) × 2 ÷ 21 = 60,200 − 209.52 = $59,990.48
- Price vs EMA: (58,000 − 59,990.48) ÷ 59,990.48 = −3.32%
- Slope: (59,990.48 − 59,800) ÷ 59,800 = +0.32%
Price is now below the EMA, but the EMA is still rising slightly. The regime turns neutral, not bearish. Bearish would need the EMA to fall more than 0.5% over five candles as well, that is below 59,800 × 0.995 = $59,501 while price stays under it. A single sharp drop changes the label from bullish to neutral; it takes a sustained decline to reach bearish.
What it tells you
The box above shows the current label and the EMA slope over the last five 12-hour candles, with the slope's range over 90 days. The history keeps one reading per day, from the candle that closes at midnight UTC.
A bullish regime says more than "price went up". It says price is holding above its own recent average and that the average itself is climbing, so the move has some persistence. Bearish says the same in reverse. Neutral says the trend is either absent or contested.
Because the rule needs two conditions, it ignores much of the noise that a plain price-crosses-EMA rule reacts to. A brief dip below the EMA in an uptrend gives neutral, not bearish. The price of that filtering is speed: the regime always changes after the turn has started, never at it.
In a clear trend the label tends to stay the same for long stretches, and that is where it is most useful. It gives a fixed, checkable answer to "is Bitcoin trending" in place of a judgement that shifts with mood.
When it matters most
The regime is most informative when it has been stable for a while and then flips, and when other measures agree with it. A bullish regime with neutral sentiment on the Fear and Greed Index describes a trend that is not yet crowded. A bullish regime with extreme greed and high funding describes one that is.
It is least reliable in sideways markets. When Bitcoin ranges around a flat EMA, price crosses back and forth and the slope hovers near the ±0.5% line, so the label can change from one 12-hour close to the next without any real change in trend. Those flips reflect the absence of a trend, not a new one. Range markets are also where false breakouts and liquidity sweeps are most common.
The 0.5% threshold is fixed. It is not scaled to realized volatility. In very quiet periods a genuine slow trend may never clear it; in very volatile periods it can be crossed several times without a lasting change.
Common misconceptions
"Bullish means price will go up." It describes the trend of the last ten days or so. It makes no claim about the next candle, and it is a description, not a trading signal.
"Neutral means nothing is happening." Neutral includes the first stage of a reversal, when price has crossed the EMA but the EMA has not turned yet. Neutral after a long bullish stretch is a different situation from neutral after weeks of sideways trading.
"A moving average can catch the turn." Every moving average lags by construction. The EMA reacts faster than a simple average, and the slope condition delays the label further. Expect the regime to confirm a turn days after it began.
"It applies to every coin." The regime is calculated on Bitcoin only. Altcoins often follow Bitcoin's trend, but an individual coin can trend against it.