What Fear & Greed is (and is not)

The Fear & Greed meter on the homepage and in Terminal comes from alternative.me, which publishes a daily sentiment index on a scale from 0 to 100. Low readings are labeled fear and high readings greed. The provider describes it as a measure of sentiment in the Bitcoin market. Dextape displays the provider’s number and label with a source stamp. We do not recompute it, smooth it or turn it into a trading signal.

Key takeaways

• The index is a third-party sentiment measure, not a Dextape forecast.
• It combines several market and online-attention inputs into one number from 0 to 100.
• A reading describes sentiment when it was published. It does not tell you where prices go next.
• If the feed fails, Dextape shows the failure or marks the figure as delayed.

What goes into the index

Alternative.me’s published methodology blends several inputs, including price volatility, market momentum and volume, social-media activity, bitcoin dominance and search trends. Each input is scored and weighted, and the result is a single number with a label: Extreme Fear, Fear, Neutral, Greed or Extreme Greed. The methodology belongs to the provider; its page lists the current inputs and weights.

How to read a reading

• A reading of 20 means the provider classified sentiment as Extreme Fear at that timestamp. It is not a buy alarm.
• A high reading describes enthusiasm at that time. It does not establish that a fall is coming.
• Sentiment can stay at an extreme for long periods. One day’s number means more next to its history than on its own.
• Because the index combines many inputs, it can move even when the price barely changes.

How Dextape shows it

Dextape reads the index from alternative.me’s public feed and shows the value, the label and the time it was published. If the feed is unavailable, we show the failure. If the last good reading is old, we mark it delayed rather than presenting yesterday’s number as current.