Market state · updated 2026-07-16 13:03 UTC · recalculated every ~2 h · history — daily · Deribit data
The classic crypto “fear and greed index” is built from social media and surveys. Ours is built from option and derivative prices: how much the market actually pays for fear right now. Four gauges — momentum, volatility, skew, the fear premium — each ranked against its own trailing year on a 0–100 scale.
The classic Fear & Greed index (alternative.me, CNN) counts what people say: social media chatter, surveys, BTC dominance. Ours counts what the market pays — the prices of options and derivatives. That changes how the scale reads:
Greed here = nobody is paying for fear:
volatility and insurance are cheap against their own year, puts see no demand.
That is market complacency — and historically the moment when optionality
(protection, far-out bets) is at its cheapest.
Fear here = the market is overpaying for protection:
premiums are inflated, insurance is expensive — option sellers are paid the most.
Right now the index is 81 — and this is greed born of quiet, not of a price run: BTC volatility is cheaper than on 90% of days in the past year, ETH — 99%; almost nobody is paying for insurance. For an option buyer this has historically been the cheapest state; for a premium seller — the worst compensation for tail risk.
A market state — not a recommendation, not a timing signal.
📍 Now: Crypto 81 — extreme greed · BTC 78 (extreme greed) · ETH 84 (extreme greed) · as of Jul 15
How to read: 0 — extreme fear, 100 — extreme greed; each point is the percentile of four options-market gauges against their own trailing year (methodology below). Toggle “BTC Spot” or “ETH Spot” (right axis; one at a time — the price scales differ) and you can see that extreme fear has historically clustered around price bottoms, and extreme greed around overheated tops. A coincidence of states, not a timing signal. Hover for exact values on any date; drag to zoom.
| component | BTC | ETH | what it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Momentum · 30-day spot return | 51 | 74 | price climbing faster than usual for its own year — greed; deep in the red — fear |
| Volatility · DVOL, scale inverted | 90 | 99 | volatility expensive against its own year = the market is paying for uncertainty — fear; quiet — greed |
| Skew · 7d and 30d skew: put IV vs call IV | 76 | 68 | puts pricier than calls = the market is paying for downside protection — fear; calls pricier — greed |
| Fear premium · VRP = DVOL − HV, scale inverted | 95 | 92 | insurance costs more than the actual movement delivered — fear is overpriced; premium below zero — rare calm |
The formula in words: the index is the average of four sub-indices. Each sub-index is the percentile of today’s value against its own trailing 365 days: “today’s number is higher than on N% of days over the past year” → sub-index N. For volatility and the fear premium the scale is inverted (expensive vol/insurance = fear = closer to 0). The components: momentum — 30-day spot return; volatility — DVOL (Deribit’s implied volatility index); skew — how much more puts cost than calls (the average of two tenors’ percentiles — 7d and 30d); fear premium — VRP = DVOL − HV. BTC and ETH are computed separately; “Crypto” is their simple average. The chart starts at Jan 2026 — the start of our own skew archive. The skew component joins the composite from Apr 2026 (the percentile needs ≥60 days of its own history; before that the index averages three components, and the skew window keeps growing to a full 365 days).
How this differs from the classic F&G (alternative.me): that index aggregates social-media mentions, surveys, BTC dominance and Google trends — sentiment in words. Ours is computed exclusively from option and derivative prices — sentiment in money: when the market is afraid, it pays up for puts and volatility, and that shows in prices before it makes headlines. Both approaches are legitimate; ours simply measures what was actually paid for.
Caveat: this is context, not a buy or sell signal. The index describes how unusual today’s state is against the past year — and promises nothing about tomorrow. Extreme fear can persist for weeks, greed for months. The full volatility picture with smiles and tenors lives on /en/vol.
🔒 What this means for positions today — in the daily two-forces briefing (08:30): whether this is a volatility buyer’s window or a premium seller’s field, and what the system does about it. Subscribe via the bot · all access levels — on the Access page.
📊 Data — from Deribit (options) and Hyperliquid (futures). Signing up through our links gets you −10% / −4% off fees and earns us a small commission; it does not affect the analysis.
A market state, not a recommendation. The index is INDICIA’s own calculation from an hourly Deribit archive (DVOL, HV, skew, spot) running since January 2024. Past states do not guarantee future outcomes. © 2026 INDICIA DESK.