Crypto Fear and Greed Index

FAQs

What is the Crypto Fear & Greed Index?

The Fear and Greed Index measures investors' sentiment toward the crypto market, indicating whether the market is currently bullish or bearish. The index is scored from 0 to 100, where scores near 0 signal extreme fear and an undervalued market, and scores near 100 signal extreme greed, FOMO-driven buying, and an overbought market.

How is CoinGecko's Crypto Fear & Greed Index calculated?

CoinGecko's Fear and Greed Index is built in-house by our crypto analysts and calculated based on the following factors:

Market Structure: This factor examines positioning in the Bitcoin perpetual futures market, using funding rates, open interest measured against its own recent average, and the spread between perpetual and spot prices. Traders paying a premium to hold long positions indicate greed, while a rapid unwinding of open interest indicates forced selling and fear.

On-Chain Activity: The index incorporates Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL), the MVRV Z-Score, and Bitcoin exchange netflows. Together, these measure whether holders are sitting on gains or losses, and whether coins are moving onto exchanges ahead of selling or off them into longer-term storage.

Liquidity and Capital Flows: This component measures capital allocation using the Stablecoin Supply Ratio, stablecoin dominance, and market-wide trading activity relative to its recent averages. Large stablecoin balances indicate capital waiting on the sidelines, while capital deploying into assets indicates returning confidence.

Volatility and Momentum: The index assesses how severe Bitcoin's losing days have been over the past 30 days, its price relative to its 30-day average, and how far below its daily highs it has been closing. Sharp downward moves indicate fear, while steady appreciation indicates confidence. Volatility on the way up is not counted as fear, instead rapid gains are captured by the momentum measure.

Dominance and Altcoin Rotation: This factor tracks the direction of Bitcoin's share of total market capitalization and the number of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins, outperforming Bitcoin. Rising Bitcoin dominance signals a flight to safety, while broad altcoin outperformance signals appetite for risk.

How do investors use the Crypto Fear & Greed Index?

Investors use the index to gauge how the rest of the market is feeling. It's typically used alongside other information, such as price action and fundamentals, to make trading decisions, rather than as a standalone signal.

When the index shows greed, the market is overvalued and due for a correction. When it shows fear, investors become worried and may panic-sell, creating buying opportunities. Two investors can look at the same Fear and Greed Index and make completely different decisions.

High greed readings are often taken as a sign the market has run ahead of itself, while extreme fear is sometimes read as a point of maximum pessimism. This interpretation is widely used, but it is a convention rather than a demonstrated result. Two investors can look at the same reading and reasonably reach opposite conclusions.

How reliable is the Crypto Fear & Greed Index?

Historically, the index tends to drop when asset prices drop and rise when prices rise, but that correlation isn't the same as the index itself being "accurate" in a predictive sense. The index measures market sentiment — not the value of the assets — so the two should be treated as separate.