Does the Fear and Greed Index cover altcoins?

Only indirectly, through Bitcoin's share of market capitalisation. The Altcoin Season Index covers breadth across the top fifty.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index

Q: Is a low Fear and Greed reading a buy signal?

No. It describes the crowd's mood. The median forward return after extreme fear has been positive more often than not, but the same regime has also preceded further falls.

Where crowd sentiment sits today, the series against the Bitcoin price, and what Bitcoin did after fear or greed.

Loading Price Binance BTCUSDT Updated --

Today

Yesterday

7 days ago

30 days ago

Today's reading0 is maximum fear, 100 is maximum greed

Extreme fear0 to 24 Fear25 to 44 Neutral45 to 54 Greed55 to 74 Extreme greed75 to 100

Index against the Bitcoin priceDaily close, regime bands shaded

Window

Index BTC / USD Hover for the print

Days in each regimeShare of the selected window

What Bitcoin did nextForward return from every day in the regime

Regime	Days	30d median	30d up	90d median	90d up
Waiting for the series.

Median forward return of BTC, and the share of days whose forward return was positive. Whole series, not the window.

The last thirteen weeksOne cell per day, red is fear, green is greed

Columns are weeks, newest on the right. Hover a cell for the date and the print.

Extremes in the windowThe lowest and highest prints

Waiting for the series.

About this data

Updated Sep 2026

Figures are shown as the source publishes them, and anything we calculate is explained below. How the data is made Report an error General information, not financial advice.

What the index measures

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is a single number from 0 to 100 that compresses several readings of crowd behaviour into one. It was built by alternative.me in 2018 on the premise that the market is emotional: people sell into fear and buy into greed, and both moods are measurable before they show up in price. The page reads the published series once an hour and draws it here. The index itself is not ours; everything computed from it is.

The published composition is volatility against its 30 and 90 day averages (25%), market momentum and volume against the same averages (25%), social media mentions and engagement (15%), Bitcoin's share of total market capitalisation (10%) and search interest (10%). A further 15% is reserved for surveys, which have been paused for some years. The weights are the publisher's; they are not adjusted here.

How to read it

Below 25 is extreme fear: Historically the crowd has been most wrong here, which is why contrarians watch it. It does not mark a bottom; it marks a state in which bottoms tend to form.
Above 75 is extreme greed: Readings this high cluster around local tops but can persist for weeks in a trend. Greed is a condition, not a signal.
The middle is noise: Between 45 and 55 the index says little. Most of the information is in the tails and in how long the index has stayed there.
Read it against price: The chart above overlays the Bitcoin close because the index alone cannot tell you whether fear arrived after a 10% drop or a 40% one. The two together can.

What followed each regime

The forward-return table takes every day in the series, notes its regime, and looks at where Bitcoin closed 30 and 90 days later. The median return and the share of positive outcomes are reported per regime. It is a description of the past, not a forecast: the sample is a few years of one asset, the regimes overlap heavily with trends, and consecutive days are not independent observations. It is here because the question "what usually happens after extreme fear" deserves an answer with numbers rather than a slogan.

What it cannot tell you

It is Bitcoin-centric by construction. Altcoin sentiment can diverge for weeks; the Altcoin Season Index is the page for that.
It is a daily print. Intraday capitulations and squeezes happen between readings.
Its inputs are partly proprietary and partly social, and the survey component has been dormant for years. Treat the level as a rough gauge, not a precise measurement.
Timing: Extreme fear has preceded both the best entries of the cycle and further drawdowns of 30%. The table tells you the distribution, not which one you are in.

Not investment advice

A sentiment index describes the crowd. It says nothing about whether the crowd is right this time. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy or sell anything.

Questions

Is a low reading a buy signal?

No. It is a description of the crowd's mood. Historically the median forward return after extreme fear has been positive more often than not, and the table above gives the actual numbers, but the same regime has also preceded further falls. Use it as context for a decision, not as the decision.

How often does it update?

The publisher issues one reading per day at 00:00 UTC. This page reads the series on load and again every hour, so a new print appears within the hour.

Why does the chart start in 2018?

That is when the index began. The Bitcoin price is joined from the same date so the two series always cover the same days.

Does it cover altcoins?

Only indirectly, through Bitcoin's share of market capitalisation. For breadth across the top fifty, use the Altcoin Season Index.

Where do the forward returns come from?

They are computed on this page from the joined series: for every day in a regime, the Bitcoin close 30 and 90 calendar days later divided by the close that day. Nothing is fetched from a third party for that table.