Crypto Fear and Greed Index: What Bitcoin Did After Extreme Readings

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index read 20, "Extreme Fear," on November 13, 2026, its first reading below 25 since Jul 14, 2026, with Bitcoin at $71,343 on the prior UTC close, 42.8% below its record of $124,753 on Oct 6, 2025. Here is what the index has actually been worth as a signal. We joined every daily reading since the index began on February 1, 2018, 3,203 of them, to Bitcoin's daily close. On extreme-fear days Bitcoin's median move over the next 30 days was +1.4% and over the next 90 days -3.7%, with the 90-day outcome positive 46% of the time. On extreme-greed days the medians were +5.7% and +10.4%, positive 60% of the time. The index correlates +0.70 with the previous 30 days of price and +0.13 with the next 30. It is a mirror, not a window, and the rest of this page is the measurement.

The index is published daily by alternative.me on a 0 to 100 scale, from volatility (25%), market momentum and volume (25%), social media (15%), surveys (15%, which the site marks as currently paused), Bitcoin dominance (10%) and search trends (10%); the site says the current index covers Bitcoin only. Its own labels give the bands we use: Extreme Fear from 0 to 25, Fear 26 to 46, Neutral 47 to 54, Greed 55 to 75 and Extreme Greed 76 to 100 (the highest reading ever published is 95). Prices are UTC daily closes from Yahoo Finance; the data and method are at the end. Nothing here is a forecast of what Bitcoin does next; it is what it did after readings like this one.

What Bitcoin did after every reading, by band

Read the last column first. On an extreme-fear day Bitcoin had typically fallen 13.5% over the previous month; on an extreme-greed day it had typically risen 31.2%. That is what the index measures, because its two heaviest inputs are volatility and momentum, which are functions of recent price. The forward columns are the ones people hope for, and they are thin. Extreme fear was followed by a median +1.4% over 30 days, the same as the all-days median of +1.4%, and by -3.7% over 90 days, below the all-days +3.6%, with the 90-day move positive on only 46% of those days. Extreme greed was followed by +5.7% and +10.4%, positive 60% of the time on both horizons. If the index were a contrarian signal, those rows would be reversed. They are not, because fear clusters in bear markets that keep falling and greed clusters in bull markets that keep rising. The entry tables further down, which look only at the first day of each episode, are weaker still: the median first day of extreme fear was followed by -0.2% over 90 days and the median first day of extreme greed by +0.9%.

The middle bands are where the forward numbers are best, which is the least quotable finding and the most honest one: Neutral readings, 47 to 54, were followed by the highest 90-day median of any band, +7.0%, positive 60% of the time. Fear, 26 to 46, the band the index sat in for 921 of the 3,203 days, was followed by +4.9% over 90 days. A reading in the middle of the dial has told you less about the past month and, by this measure, slightly more about the next quarter than either extreme.

The correlation that explains the index

A correlation of +0.70 with the trailing 30 days and +0.71 with the trailing 90 means the reading is, to a first approximation, last month's and last quarter's return turned into a number between 0 and 100. The forward correlations of +0.13 and +0.21 are not zero, and they are positive: higher readings have gone with slightly better subsequent returns, which is momentum, not contrarianism. For a trader this is the whole finding. The index tells you where you have been with great confidence and where you are going with a little, in the same direction.

By decile: the extremes of the extremes

The two end rows look like the contrarian's dream and the momentum trader's dream at once, and both deserve a warning. Readings of 0 to 9, 42 days in all, were followed by a median +6.7% over 30 days, positive 74% of the time: of those 42 days, 23 are from 2026 between February and June, 10 from May and June 2022, 6 from the March 2020 crash, two from 2018 and one from August 2019, and the index's lowest reading ever, 5, was printed on Aug 22, 2019 and twice in February 2026. Readings of 90 or more, 72 days, were followed by +22.6% over 30 days and +107.6% over 90, positive 88% and 81% of the time: 65 of those 72 days are the single run from Nov 6, 2020 into February 2021, when Bitcoin went from $15,566 to $57,540 on Feb 21, 2021. One bull run is doing the work of that row. Strip it out and the extreme-greed band is the 76 to 89 readings, 210 days, which were followed by +0.4% over 30 days and +3.6% over 90, the all-days median at 90 days and below it at 30.

Every entry into extreme fear since 2018

A band average mixes the first day of a panic with its fortieth, so we also measured entries: the first day the reading crossed below 25 after at least five days above it. There were 41 of them before today; today's reading of 20 is the 42nd, and it has no forward data yet. The median entry was followed by -1.3% over 30 days (up in 20 of 41), -0.2% over 90 days (up in 20 of 41) and -3.8% over 180 days (up in 18 of 40). The number that matters more for anyone holding through it: the median entry saw Bitcoin trade 20.2% lower at some point in the following 90 days; in 29 of the 41 the low was at least 10% below the entry price, and in 21 it was at least 20% below.

The entries sort into two kinds, and the index cannot tell them apart on the day. The 2019 and 2024 to 2025 entries were dips in up-years: Jan 29, 2019 was followed by +52.2% over 90 days, Sep 6, 2024 by +79.0%, Apr 7, 2025 by +37.9%. The 2018, late-2021 and 2022 entries were the first legs of bear markets: Oct 11, 2018 was followed by -35.5%, Nov 27, 2021 by -28.5%, Apr 12, 2022 by -50.2%, with the lows in the following 90 days 48%, 36% and 53% below the entry. The longest stay in extreme fear, 74 days from May 6, 2022, began the week Terra collapsed and did not end until after the June 2022 low; it is not in the table because the reading had already dipped below 25 in the days before it. Whether Bitcoin's bounces hold is the same question the stock market asks, and the answer is the same: a reading says a drop has happened, not that it has finished.

The three most recent entries before today belong to this bear market: Oct 12, 2025 at a reading of 24 with Bitcoin at $115,170, six days after the record close; Nov 4, 2025 at 21; Jan 21, 2026 at 24, followed by -23.9% in 30 days and the February 2026 readings of 5, the lowest in the index's history. The May 28, 2026 entry, at 22, was followed by -18.5% in 30 days and then +7.5% by day 90. Ether has followed the same entries worse: a median -9.0% over the 90 days after an extreme-fear entry, positive in 18 of 41.

Every entry into extreme greed since 2018

Entries into extreme greed, the first day at 75 or above after five days below, were fewer, 29, and on the day they happened they were close to a coin flip: the median entry was followed by -1.8% over 30 days (up in 14 of 29) and +0.9% over 90 days (up in 14 of 28). They separate at 180 days, +12.9%, up in 16 of 28, and the median entry saw Bitcoin trade 20.1% higher at some point in the next 90 days, the mirror image of the fear entries. The longest stay, 77 days from Nov 6, 2020, covered the move from $15,566 to $30,826 on Jan 21, 2021, which is also why the 90-plus decile looks the way it does.

The greed entries that marked tops are the ones everyone remembers: Mar 31, 2021 and Apr 6, 2021, in the two weeks before the April 2021 high, were followed by -39.1% and -42.0% over 90 days; Nov 3, 2021, five days before the record close that stood until 2024, by -38.5%. The ones that marked the middle of a run are the ones nobody remembers: Oct 25, 2020 was followed by +146.1% over 90 days, Dec 5, 2023 by +55.0%, Oct 30, 2024 by +40.1%. The 2025 entries between May and August, four of them at prices from $107,288 to $118,360, were all followed by lower prices 180 days later; the latest entry, Sep 22, 2026 at $86,172, was the only extreme-greed day of 2026 so far and came seven weeks before today's reading of 20.

The ten lowest and ten highest readings

Five of the ten lowest readings ever are from February 2026, when the index printed 5 on Feb 12, 2026 and Feb 23, 2026 with Bitcoin at $66,222 and $64,617; the others are four days at the June 2022 bottom and Aug 22, 2019. From the February 2026 fives Bitcoin was +19.1% to +19.7% higher 90 days later. Nine of the ten highest readings, all 95, come from the single stretch between Dec 1, 2020 and Feb 14, 2021; the tenth is Jun 26, 2019, which was followed by -33.8% over 90 days and -28.8% over a year, and is the reason not to read the 2020 column as a rule.

The index by year, and where 2026 sits

2026 has spent 138 of its 316 days in extreme fear, the most of any year since 2022's 207, with a median reading of 27, and Bitcoin is down 18.5% on the year from the December 31 close. The two previous years with a median reading under 30 were 2018 (28, Bitcoin -59%) and 2022 (24, -65%); the years with a median above 60 were 2021 (65, +58%) and 2024 (71, +112%). The reading tracks the year it is in. What it did not do in any of those years is turn before the price did.

What this means for a rule, and for a mood

If you trade crypto on how the index makes you feel, the measurement above is uncomfortable: the reading was built from the last month of price, the next month barely depends on it, and the days it screams loudest, under 10 or over 90, are rare and bunched into a handful of episodes. If you trade on rules, it is useful for one thing: knowing what kind of market you are standing in. In extreme fear the median entry has gone on to trade 20.2% below its entry price within 90 days, so position size and a stop placed as an order, not a hope, decide what the next entry costs. In extreme greed the median run has continued, and the entries that ended runs were indistinguishable on the day from the ones that did not.

JorgAI runs the rules a member sets inside their own exchange account, around the clock on Kraken and the Crypto.com Exchange, with position caps, a daily spend cap, stops and targets placed at the venue, and a log of every candidate it declined and why. It does not read this index, and it does not trade a mood; how crypto's 24/7 clock changes the rules is the practical side of that. For the stock-market question, whether Bitcoin trades with the S&P 500 and what it did after every Fed decision since 2020 are measured the same way as this page, and what an exchange API key can and cannot do is the first thing to read before connecting one.

To see rules run on a simulated account before you connect an exchange, start on the free plan; the demo account inside needs no broker. Every cap and exit the auto-trader applies is defined in the settings glossary, and connecting Kraken or Crypto.com takes an API key with trading permission and no withdrawal permission.

Quick answers

What is the crypto fear and greed index today?

20, "Extreme Fear," on November 13, 2026, the first reading below 25 since Jul 14, 2026. The index is published daily by alternative.me on a 0 to 100 scale and covers Bitcoin only.

Is extreme fear a buy signal for Bitcoin?

Not by the record. Over the 740 extreme-fear days since 2018, Bitcoin's median move was +1.4% over the next 30 days and -3.7% over the next 90, positive 46% of the time at 90 days, below the all-days average. The 41 entries into extreme fear split between dips in bull years and first legs of bear markets, and the reading did not tell them apart.

Is extreme greed a sell signal?

Not by the record either. Over 282 extreme-greed days the median move was +5.7% over 30 days and +10.4% over 90, positive 60% of the time. Greed has marked the middle of runs more often than their end, with the April 2021 and November 2021 tops the exceptions.

How is the index calculated?

Volatility 25%, market momentum and volume 25%, social media 15%, surveys 15% (paused), Bitcoin dominance 10% and search trends 10%, per alternative.me. Because volatility and momentum come from recent prices, the reading correlates +0.70 with the previous 30 days of Bitcoin's move and +0.13 with the next 30.

What was the lowest reading ever?

5, on August 22, 2019 and on February 12 and 23, 2026. Five of the ten lowest readings in the index's history are from February 2026 and four from June 2022. The highest is 95, printed once in June 2019 and eleven times between December 2020 and February 2021.

How we put this together. Every daily reading from the index's public API, 3,204 values from February 1, 2018 to November 13, 2026 (the API's record is missing four days), read on November 13; the bands are the API's own classification labels. Bitcoin and Ether closes are UTC daily closes from Yahoo Finance (BTC-USD, ETH-USD), joined by date; the November 13 bar was still open when this was built and is left out, so forward moves run through November 12, 2026 and the latest reading has none yet. Forward and trailing moves are close to close over calendar days, since crypto trades every day. An entry is the first day in a band after at least five consecutive days outside it. Correlations are Pearson's on daily readings against the matching window. The data folder and script are kept, and this page is refreshed when the current reading or the record changes materially.

The figures in this article describe what Bitcoin did after past readings of a sentiment index and are not a prediction or a recommendation to buy or sell any digital asset. JorgAI is software that carries out the rules you set in your own exchange account; it is not an investment adviser. Digital assets are volatile and trading involves risk of loss. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is published by alternative.me, which is not affiliated with JorgAI.