₿ btclyzer Bitcoin data analytics
Home› Tools› Fear & Greed History
Visualisation

Bitcoin Fear & Greed History

The full daily Fear & Greed Index since 2018, overlaid on the BTC price. See where sentiment sat at every major top and bottom — and read an auto-generated take on the current situation and what this zone has historically meant.

Building the sentiment timeline…

How to read this chart

The main line is the Crypto Fear & Greed Index — a daily 0–100 score from Alternative.me where 0 is maximum fear and 100 is maximum greed. It is coloured by sentiment zone (red extreme fear → yellow fear → grey neutral → lime greed → green extreme greed), so you can read the regime straight off the line. The orange line is the BTC price on a separate log axis, so you can see directly how sentiment lined up with price at every turn.

It's interactive. Zoom with the +/− buttons (or scroll) and pan with the ◀ ▶ buttons (or drag); double-click resets the view. Click any zone in the legend to isolate just that sentiment band and the matching slices of the line — handy for spotting, say, every extreme-fear episode at a glance. On mobile, tap or slide a finger across the chart (hover on desktop) to read the exact index value, zone and BTC price on that day.

The pattern that jumps out: the deepest fear has repeatedly coincided with durable price lows, and the most euphoric greed with local and cycle tops. That's the contrarian thesis in one picture — but note how long the index can stay pinned at an extreme. Fear sat below 20 for weeks in 2018 and 2022; greed sat above 75 for much of early 2021. The index tells you the regime, not the day.

What the index actually measures

Alternative.me fuses several inputs into the single number: price volatility, market momentum and volume, social-media activity, Bitcoin dominance and Google Trends. It is a sentiment gauge, not a valuation model — it says how the crowd is positioned emotionally, which is most useful precisely when it reaches an extreme that disagrees with what everyone is saying. For the full breakdown see the Fear & Greed Index explainer.

Use it as a regime filter, not a trigger: extreme fear is the zone to check your shopping list, extreme greed the zone to check your risk — but always alongside price structure, trend and on-chain data, never alone. btclyzer's dashboard folds Fear & Greed into its multi-factor rating exactly this way, weighting it more on the longer timeframes where slow sentiment regimes matter most.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index?
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is a daily 0–100 sentiment score published by Alternative.me. It aggregates several inputs — volatility, market momentum and volume, social-media activity, Bitcoin dominance and Google Trends — into one number where 0 is extreme fear and 100 is extreme greed. This tool plots its full daily history since February 2018 against the BTC price so you can see how sentiment lined up with every major top and bottom.
Is extreme fear a buy signal and extreme greed a sell signal?
Historically, sub-25 extreme-fear readings have clustered around durable lows (December 2018, March 2020, June and November 2022) and 75+ extreme-greed readings around mid-bull euphoria and local tops (early and late 2021, the Q1-2024 ETF run). But the index is descriptive, not a timing trigger — extreme readings can persist for weeks. It works best as a regime filter that tells you whether the crowd is positioned fearfully or greedily, used alongside price, trend and on-chain data, not as a standalone buy/sell button.
How far back does the data go?
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has been published daily since 1 February 2018, so the timeline covers the late 2017 / 2018 bear, the 2019 relief rally, the March 2020 COVID crash, the 2020–2021 bull market, the 2022 deleveraging cascade and the 2023–2024 spot-ETF cycle. You can window the chart to 1, 2 or 4 years or view the entire history at once.
Where does the data come from?
The index values come from Alternative.me's public Fear & Greed API. The historical timeline is baked into the page (past readings never change) and the most recent days refresh live from Alternative.me when it is reachable. The BTC price overlay uses CoinMetrics daily price history. All calculations run in your browser.
Does the summary predict Bitcoin's price?
No. The auto-generated summary describes the current situation (today's value, the recent trend, how long the index has been in its current zone and where it sits in the selected window) and frames a contrarian outlook on what that zone has historically meant. It is not a price prediction. The Fear & Greed Index is a sentiment gauge — a regime filter, not a forecast — and past sentiment patterns do not guarantee future price behaviour.
Early access · limited spots

Become a tester — get PRO free for life

btclyzer is pre-launch. The first testers who try it and send honest feedback keep PRO for life — no card, no catch.

Sentiment is one input. See the full picture.

The btclyzer dashboard fuses Fear & Greed with RSI, MACD, EMA, Bollinger, Stoch RSI, CBBI and on-chain data into one live BUY / SELL / HODL rating across five timeframes. Free, no signup.

Open the dashboard →