The Crypto Fear and Greed Index fell to 56, a neutral reading, on Monday from 67 a week earlier and an Aug. 26 peak of 82, the highest reading of the year. Bitcoin has dropped about 6%, from $86,978 to $81,749.83, as oil topped $101 and the 30-year Treasury yield reached 5.70%.

Bitcoin was trading just above $82,000 on Monday, down close to 5% for the week. The decline followed a red-hot summer rally that lifted Bitcoin and the broader crypto market out of a prolonged bear market, but market conditions have since shifted, bucking typically reliable seasonal trends.

The Fear and Greed Index is a 0-to-100 gauge of investor appetite, with 0 representing extreme fear and 100 representing extreme greed. The widely tracked gauge, maintained by data provider Alternative.me, blends signals such as volatility, momentum, social media activity and market dominance into a single score, and readings near the midpoint indicate neither strong conviction nor capitulation. It peaked at 82 on Aug. 26, its highest reading of the year, and stood at 68 a month ago.

Bitcoin reached $86,978 early last week before falling as low as $81,749.83 on Oct. 8, a decline of about 6%, and then recovering to roughly $83,800 on Monday. The largest cryptocurrency remained about 34% below its all-time high of above $126,000, set on Oct. 6, 2025, when extreme greed was the prevailing reading.

That decline followed a difficult period that lasted until August this year. Bitcoin’s August rally produced a 24.9% price increase, prompting industry participants including Fundstrat co-founder and Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee and Crypto Quant’s Kim Yong Yu to declare that the bear market had ended.

The appetite for crypto investments has since cooled, at least now, as reflected by the Fear and Greed Index. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which began trading in the United States in January 2024 and opened the asset to a much wider pool of institutional capital, lost $484.9 million last Wednesday, their worst day since June, followed by another $244.1 million in outflows the next day. A $21.1 million inflow on Friday left the funds with a net loss of $386.3 million for October. Ethereum funds extended their outflow streak to nine days, with $635 million leaving the funds this month.

Macroeconomic headwinds have also weighed on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market. Brent crude topped $101 a barrel last week as ship attacks around the Strait of Hormuz increased, while the 30-year Treasury yield reached 5.70%, its highest level since 2002. Stocks, gold and Bitcoin sold off together that day, indicating a macroeconomic trade rather than an issue specific to crypto. Brent was trading near $110 on Monday even after President Donald Trump said the United States would not engage in war at least until November.

Oil is an input cost for shipping, manufacturing, farming and travel, meaning a sustained rise in crude prices can feed into consumer prices. Higher inflation makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and increases the likelihood of rate hikes, a path described in the central bank’s latest minutes.

Bond investors typically demand higher yields when inflation erodes the value of Treasuries’ fixed payments. Because the Treasury yield is the benchmark “risk-free” return, a 30-year Treasury paying 5.70% can draw capital away from riskier assets and increase borrowing costs across the economy. Bitcoin pays no yield and trades alongside stocks as a risk asset, so rising yields and expectations of higher interest rates tend to weigh on its price, as they did on Oct. 7.

These conditions help explain the decline in the Fear and Greed Index and the greater caution among traders toward high-risk assets such as Bitcoin. With Brent holding near $110 and the Fed’s latest minutes flagging the risk that persistent inflation could push rates back up, attention now turns to whether energy and borrowing costs keep weighing on risk assets and whether October’s ETF outflows give way to renewed inflows.

Prediction markets, where participants stake real money on outcomes, offer a live read on trader expectations. Traders on Myriad, a prediction market developed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, assign Bitcoin a 45% chance of reaching $87,500 in October, down from 55% on Oct. 7. The odds of Bitcoin reaching $90,000 have fallen to 28% from 36%.

Myriad traders also assign a 56% chance that Bitcoin will fall as low as $80,000, followed by 33% odds of a decline to $77,500 and 20% odds of a drop to $75,000.

Source: CryptoNewsNet.