The Crypto Fear and Greed Index on CoinMarketCap has been witnessing an extreme fear situation since the beginning of this month. On February 6, 2026, it hit its yearly low, standing at a reading of 5 and in an extreme fear zone.
This indicates a market sentiment environment that has decreased heavily in the last few months. The index comprises a composite sentiment gauge that collects signals over volatility, market momentum, social media activity, dominance and search trends, pouring them into a single score between 0 and 100, showing extreme fear and extreme greed, respectively.
At the time of writing, the score is 13, which makes it still sit in an extreme fear zone. On May 23, 2025, the index hit its all-time high, standing at a whopping score of 76 and indicating an extreme greed situation.
The Prolonged Reason
The extended fall into the fear zone takes place for the major part of the events of October 10, 2025, commonly referred to as “10/10”. The events on that single day influenced the largest liquidation event in the history of the crypto industry, having more than $19 billion in leveraged positions shut within one day over 1.6 million accounts.
Bitcoin slipped about 14% on that day, and altcoins witnessed more tough exhaustion. The fall revealed structural vulnerabilities in crypto derivative markets, thin liquidity, over cross-margin leverage, and exchange infrastructure that fastened under the load, and sentiment hasn’t sufficiently recovered since then.
The latest reading is noteworthy because of its divergence from current institutional developments. Major traditional finance players such as BlackRock, Citadel and others carries on to intensify their engagement with DeFi and tokenisation, and wider real-world asset adoption projects carries on to make notable
Retail sentiment with institutional conviction is running on various time horizons currently, a dynamic worth overlooking as markets search for a platform.
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