What is the Fear & Greed Index?
The Fear & Greed Index is a sentiment gauge that compresses market emotion into a single number from 0 to 100. Lower values mean fear is dominating, while higher values mean greed is dominating. Alternative.me’s public index page describes it as a daily sentiment measure for Bitcoin and other large cryptocurrencies.
A live sentiment tool is useful because sentiment often moves ahead of headlines. When fear is very high, sellers may already be exhausted. When greed is very high, buyers may already be crowded in. That does not create a signal by itself, but it gives useful context.
How this page works
This page loads the latest daily Fear & Greed reading from Alternative.me’s public /fng/ endpoint, then builds a live dashboard, a short historical summary, and a chart from the returned daily values. The API supports a limit parameter, with limit=1 returning the latest value and higher values returning older entries too.
Lower score = more fear
Higher score = more greed
Historical line = daily values returned by the public API
Why this is a live tool, not a toy
The point is not decoration. The point is fast context. A good live tool should answer three things immediately: what the market feels like now, how that compares with recent readings, and whether the current mood is stretched or balanced.
Alternative.me also publishes attribution rules for this dataset, and their docs say commercial use is allowed as long as attribution is given next to the data. This page includes that attribution directly under the chart.
How to use it
- Check the current score first
- Compare it with yesterday, last week, and last month
- Read the trend chart for direction, not prediction
- Use it as context before making a crypto decision
Frequently Asked Questions
A lower score means fear is dominating sentiment. In practice, that often means the market is cautious, defensive, or more volatile.
A higher score means greed is dominating sentiment. That often lines up with crowded optimism and can come with higher pullback risk.
No. It is a sentiment context tool. It helps frame decisions, but it should not replace your own strategy, risk control, or market analysis.
The latest API response includes a time-until-update field for the newest value, and the public index is presented as a daily reading.