The Crypto Concern & Greed Index fell to five on Thursday, signaling a pointy deterioration in market sentiment as digital asset costs proceed to slip.
The decline displays intensifying panic amongst buyers, with danger urge for food eroding amid broader world market uncertainty.
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Crypto Sentiment Sinks Deeper Into “Excessive Concern”
The Crypto Concern & Greed Index measures the general emotional state of the cryptocurrency market on a scale from 0 to 100. Readings between 0 and 24 point out Excessive Concern, 25 to 49 sign Concern, 50 represents Impartial circumstances, 51 to 74 replicate Greed, and 75 to 100 denote Excessive Greed.
At 5, the index locations the market firmly in Excessive Concern territory. The most recent drop comes amid a gradual decline in sentiment over latest weeks.
A month in the past, the index stood at 26, already inside the Concern vary. It slid to 12 every week earlier and registered 11 only a day earlier than reaching its present low. The speedy deterioration highlights how shortly confidence has unraveled as costs weakened.
The collapse in crypto sentiment coincides with a broader surge in world financial anxiousness, as evidenced by the World Uncertainty Index. The index tracks how incessantly the time period “uncertainty” seems in Economist Intelligence Unit nation reviews.
It covers greater than 140 international locations and offers a quarterly, cross-country indicator broadly utilized in macroeconomic analysis and world danger evaluation.
Within the third quarter of 2025, the World Uncertainty Index surged to an all-time excessive above 100,000. Within the fourth quarter, it was recorded at 94,947.
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These ranges are roughly double the peaks noticed throughout earlier main crises, together with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and the Eurozone debt disaster.
“Rising geopolitical tensions, unstable markets, and coverage uncertainty are driving the spike, as buyers battle to cost in what comes subsequent,” Coin Bureau wrote.
The elevated studying alerts heightened anxiousness throughout world markets as buyers grapple with unpredictable financial and political circumstances. In opposition to this backdrop, the crypto market’s plunge into Excessive Concern displays not solely falling costs but in addition a broader retreat from danger property worldwide.
Crypto Market Cap Falls 22% in 2026 as Bitcoin and Ethereum Lengthen Losses
The collapse in sentiment comes because the broader crypto market continues to maneuver downwards. In 2026, whole market capitalization has fallen by greater than 22%, reversing the optimism that outlined the beginning of the yr.
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Bitcoin, which started January on a stronger footing, ended the month down by greater than 10%. It has dropped one other 14.6% thus far in February.
Ethereum has additionally fallen 33.8% yr up to now. The sustained drawdown has weighed on market exercise.
Analysts Weigh Crypto Market’s Subsequent Transfer
Amid these bear market circumstances, the neighborhood stays unsure about what comes subsequent. Analyst Kyle Chassé pointed to historic precedents, noting that equally depressed readings within the Crypto Concern & Greed Index had been seen in 2018, March 2020, and within the aftermath of the FTX collapse in 2022.
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“Each time, it marked a large alternative window. No, it doesn’t assure the underside. However traditionally, peak concern is the place asymmetry lives,” he stated.
Different analysts argue the present downturn might signify a shakeout section earlier than a possible breakout. Nonetheless, it stays unclear when, or if, a broader crypto market restoration will comply with.
Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, has forecasted that Bitcoin might commerce sideways till summer time 2026. He famous that the precise location of the Bitcoin backside stays unclear and that present dynamics more and more counsel the market has entered a protracted reassessment of danger.
Youssef pointed to a number of structural elements, together with US political and financial cycles, persistent inflation constraints, weakened retail capital flows, and cautious institutional demand following heavy losses.
“Because of this, we’re unlikely to see a V-shaped reversal earlier than the summer time of 2026. Extra possible, we’ll see common rebounds, triggered by short-covering and brief squeezes,” he informed BeInCrypto.
Based on Youssef, such rebounds could possibly be robust, ranging between 20% and 30%, and probably extended. Nonetheless, he warned they might in the end show to be bull traps.
He said that crypto historically stays in an extended accumulation section inside a single vary earlier than the beginning of a real bull market.