The Fear & Greed Index has a problem.
It's the most quoted crypto market gauge, every newsletter and YouTube channel cites it. And every cycle, it gets the major turns roughly right. But it's also a single-dimensional sentiment number — built from BTC volatility, momentum, social, dominance, and a few survey signals. When you actually try to use it, three weaknesses show up.
One: it has no edge over on-chain valuation. When MVRV Z-score said "extreme top" in November 2021, Fear & Greed agreed. Both fired at the same time, telling you the same thing. You don't need two indicators that say the same thing — you need indicators that disagree, because when they disagree, that's the interesting moment.
Two: it's opaque. The exact formula is not public. You don't know how much volatility weighs against social, what survey questions are asked, when the methodology was last revised. For a number that millions of people refresh every morning, that's a lot of black-box.
Three: it ignores half the structural picture. It doesn't look at mining hashrate stress (Hash Ribbons). It doesn't look at over-leveraged longs (funding rates). It doesn't know whether BTC has finished a 200-WMA reclaim or not. These are the things that historically separate "this is a real bottom" from "this is just a sentiment dip".
We built Arena Pulse because we wanted one number that fixes all three.
What Arena Pulse is
A single score from 0 to 100, with the same semantic as Fear & Greed: 0 = capitulation/bottom, 100 = euphoric/top. So if you already use F&G, you can read Arena Pulse without re-learning anything.
The difference is what's inside the number.
| Component | Max points | What it captures |
|---|---|---|
| Bullmarket gauge | 20 | 5-stage BTC trend structure (Bull Market Support Band) |
| Fear & Greed Index | 15 | The classic sentiment gauge — still useful, just not alone |
| MVRV Z-Score | 15 | On-chain valuation vs. realized value |
| 200 WMA Distance | 15 | How far is BTC above/below the 200-week moving avg |
| Mayer Multiple | 10 | Price / 200-day SMA — short-term overextension |
| Altcoin Season Score | 10 | Dominance rotation signal |
| Funding Rate Z-Score | 10 | Are perp longs over-leveraged? |
| Hash Ribbons State | 5 | Miner capitulation / recovery from hashrate MAs |
Eight indicators, weighted, summed to 100. Every component is shown individually on the page — you see what's driving the score, you see what's missing, you can disagree with the weighting and read the components directly.
What the bands mean
| Range | Label | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–20 | CAPITULATION | Deep risk-off. Historically often accumulation windows for strong hands |
| 20–40 | RISK-OFF | Macro stress. Cash preference rational, drawdown protection priority |
| 40–60 | NEUTRAL | Range-bound. No strong conviction in either direction |
| 60–80 | CONSTRUCTIVE | Mid-cycle bull. Classic long setups work, trend following functions |
| 80–100 | EUPHORIC | Historically often top territory. Avoid aggressive leverage |
These aren't predictions. They're descriptions of the historical regime — "when the score was 92, what tended to happen after". Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes it's the local top. The score doesn't know which.
Three historical reference points
November 2021, week of the ATH. F&G was at 84. Arena Pulse would have been at 91 — F&G high, but also MVRV Z >7 (top territory historically), Mayer >2.4, Funding Z >2 (over-leveraged longs), Bullmarket gauge at 5/5. Five components screaming the same thing. F&G alone gave you one signal. Arena Pulse gave you five.
June 2022, three-arrows-capital week. F&G was at 6 (extreme fear). Arena Pulse would have been at 8 — F&G low, but also MVRV Z below zero (rare), Hash Ribbons in capitulation phase, 200 WMA distance negative. Again, five things confirming the same picture. F&G alone said "fear". Arena Pulse said "fear, with on-chain and miner data confirming the structural bottom".
January 2024, post-ETF-approval. F&G was at 70 (greed). Arena Pulse would have been at 62 — F&G greedy, but Mayer still under 2, Funding Z neutral, Hash Ribbons in normal state. F&G alone said "greedy, maybe top soon". Arena Pulse said "constructive, but not euphoric — leverage isn't structurally over yet". That nuance mattered: the market kept going up for another two months.
How it's computed
Pure functions. No LLM. No black box. The full code is at src/lib/arenaPulse/scoreCalculator.ts in the repo — same calculation we run server-side, you can verify it on any historical data.
Every component has a thresholds table written into the code:
mapMvrvZScore(z) {
if (z < 0) return 0
if (z < 3) return 5
if (z < 5) return 9
if (z < 7) return 12
return 15
}
That's the entire MVRV mapping. Same for all other components, all in the same file. Tweak it, fork it, disagree with it — the thresholds are visible, not hidden in a proprietary formula.
What happens when a data source goes down
If a component is missing — say alternative.me's Fear & Greed API is down — Arena Pulse computes the score from the remaining seven components and normalizes to 100. A "confidence" indicator (e.g. 7/8) shows you how many components are in the score. Below 6/8 we'd flag it as low confidence.
What it isn't
It's not a trade signal. Score below 20 doesn't mean "buy". Score above 80 doesn't mean "sell". It's a description of where the market is, not a recommendation about what you should do with it.
It's not predictive of timing. Euphoric phases can last weeks or months. Capitulation phases can re-test lows. The score tells you the current regime, not the duration.
It's not a replacement for due diligence on your specific positions. Macro context is just context.
Where to find it
tradingstrategies.work/dashboard/arena-pulse — free, no signup, no auth. Refreshes daily at 07:55 UTC.
The page shows today's score, the 8 component contributions, the 30-day trend chart, and the full methodology. You can share the score directly (built-in share button generates a Twitter card with the OG image).
For the detail dashboard with full BTC cycle phase and F&G cadence chart, see Bitcoin Market Pulse.
We're going to keep iterating. If you have feedback on the weighting, missing components, or score-band thresholds — drop it in Improvements, we read every entry.