The cryptocurrency market has plunged into a state of extreme anxiety, with the widely followed Crypto Fear & Greed Index dropping to as low as 14-15 over the past 24 hours. The decline from the previous day's reading of 16 has pushed the market firmly into 'Extreme Fear' territory, and the total crypto market capitalization slid 2.90% to $2.11 trillion. Trading volume also fell 4.43% to $84.35 billion.
Bitcoin ($BTC) lost 3.19%, trading at $61,240.48, while Ethereum ($ETH) dropped 3.69% to $1,624.99. Bitcoin’s market dominance remained high at 58.0%, and Ethereum’s stood at 9.3%. Even as speculative meme tokens like $BASE, $PEIPEI, and $JOTCHUA posted triple-digit gains, the broader market suffered: DeFi total value locked fell 1.82% to $70.67 billion, and NFT sales volume dipped 13.87% to $1.54 million.
Developed by CoinMarketCap, the Fear & Greed Index synthesizes price momentum, volatility, derivatives data, stablecoin supply ratios, and search trends to quantify market sentiment on a scale of 0 (Extreme Fear) to 100 (Extreme Greed). At a reading of 15, the indicator mirrors levels last seen during major market crashes, such as the COVID-19 sell-off in March 2020 and the FTX collapse in November 2022. This psychological threshold highlights deep-seated caution among both retail and institutional participants, though historically such extreme fear has occasionally preceded market reversals.
Adding to the flurry of developments, CME launched crypto index futures for ADA, LINK, and XRP, while Japanese banking giants Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho, and Sumitomo Mitsui announced a joint stablecoin project targeting a 2027 launch. Anthropic also introduced Fable 5, raising discussions around AI-powered DeFi vulnerability detection.
