Bitcoin Extreme Fear Streak Extends To 22 Days As Price Struggles

Data shows the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index continues to be inside the extreme fear zone as the cryptocurrency market continues to struggle.

The “Fear & Greed Index” refers to an indicator created by Alternative that tells us about the average sentiment present among traders in the Bitcoin and wider cryptocurrency markets. The index uses the data of the following five factors to determine the market mentality: trading volume, market cap dominance, volatility, social media sentiment, and Google Trends.

When the value of the metric is greater than 53, it means the sentiment shared by the majority of the investors is that of greed. On the other hand, the indicator being under 47 suggests the investors are fearful. Naturally, values lying between the two thresholds indicate the presence of a net neutral mentality.

Besides these three main zones, there are also two ‘extreme’ areas called the extreme fear (25 and under) and extreme greed (above 75). Recently, the market has been inside the former of the two.

Here is how the latest value of the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index looks:

As is visible above, the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index has a value of 7, which is pretty deep into the extreme fear zone. In fact, this level of despair is something that the traders have rarely held historically.

The Fear & Greed Index has consistently been at similarly low levels during the last couple of weeks, as the below chart shows.

Overall, the indicator has been stuck inside the extreme fear territory for 22 straight days now. The recent bad market sentiment is a result of the drawdown that the Bitcoin price has faced.

In the past, cryptocurrency markets have often tended to move in the direction that goes contrary to the expectations of the majority. The probability of a contrarian move occurring has generally been the strongest in the extreme sentiment zones as that’s where the crowd is the most sure about the market’s outcome.

Given this, the recent extreme fear mentality could help the sector bottom out. The lowest that the metric has gone this cycle is 5, which is similar to the lowest point of the previous bear market. In that bear market, however, the market consolidated and spent more time inside the extreme fear zone even after the low in the Fear & Greed Index, before a bottom was eventually reached.

It now remains to be seen how long Bitcoin and others will take to hit a cyclical low this time around.

Bitcoin has been unable to make much recovery since its bounce from the $60,000 level as its price continues to trade around $67,700.