The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has just tipped into the “Extreme Fear” zone for the first time in two years, as United States spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) reported outflows of $168.4 million on Aug. 5.
The index, which measures market sentiment for Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry, fell to a score of 17 out of 100 on Aug. 5 — the lowest since July 12, 2022.
The index score was 67 on July 29 — marking one of the biggest week-to-week declines in recent years.
It comes as spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs reported $168 million in outflows on Aug. 5. Most came from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF at $69.1 million and $69 million, respectively, Farside Investors data shows.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust, VanEck Bitcoin ETF and Bitwise Bitcoin ETF recorded inflows of $21.8 million, $3 million and $2.9 million, respectively, while BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust recorded zero..
However, the spot Ether (ETH) ETFs saw $48.8 million of inflows led by BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust at $47.1 million, according to Farside Investors.
VanEck and Fidelity’s Ether products also saw inflows of $16.6 million and $16.2 million, respectively.
Sentiment fell when Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) tanked 10% and 18% in a short two-hour window on Aug. 5.
Over $600 million in leveraged long positions were wiped out, including many altcoins that were hit far harder than Bitcoin and Ether.
Trillions of dollars were also wiped from the US stock market on Aug. 5.
The market stumble has been led by weak employment data, slowed growth among major tech stocks and revived fears of a recession.
Independent trader Bob Loukas described the last three days in a one in seven to 10-year event, which saw more than $500 billion wiped from the crypto market cap.
Related: Crypto market crash triggered by ‘aggressive’ selling by Jump Trading: Report
One Bitcoin analyst, Tuur Demeester, believes Bitcoin could bottom somewhere between $40,000 and $45,000 — though he cautioned against betting on it.
“In a Bitcoin bull market you don’t take bearish bets because prices can whipsaw back up in no time.”
Bitcoin has partially recovered since and is up 11.85% to $55,680 since bottoming out at $49,780 on Aug. 5, CoinGecko data shows.
