Ethereum and Chainlink step out of the downward trend
Two of the ten coins we track read sideways this morning instead of downward. The other eight do not, and Bitcoin is deeper in the red over seven days.
Our trend gauge puts Ethereum and Chainlink at sideways on 14 August. The other eight coins are still downward. The day before yesterday all ten read downward, so this is the first crack in a picture that pointed one way for a week.
This morning's readings
Bitcoin was quoted at 54,262 euros. The fear and greed index from alternative.me stands at 29; on 12 August it was 27.
Why Ethereum reads sideways at minus 15 per cent
That looks contradictory and it is not. The gauge looks at the direction of the most recent moves, not at the return over the full week. Ethereum fell hard and then flattened out; the gauge measures that the pushing has stopped, not that the loss has been made good.
Sideways is therefore not a recovery. It means the recent move falls inside the range that fits the volatility of that coin. If you consider the minus 15.3 per cent over the past seven days more important than the direction of the last few days, read the table above from right to left.
The picture is not better than the day before yesterday
Two coins stepping out of the downward trend sounds like clearing skies, but the seven-day figures have in fact got worse. Bitcoin stood at minus 13.9 per cent on 12 August and is now at minus 16.4. Cardano went from minus 17.2 to minus 22.7.
What has changed is therefore not the size of the fall but its pace at two coins. That is a difference you only see when you put both numbers side by side, and it is exactly why we show the trend and the weekly change instead of one of the two.
How we measure this
The gauge calculates the logarithmic returns of the past seven days, weights recent moves more heavily through an exponential average, and tests the outcome against the volatility of that same series instead of against a fixed percentage. The thresholds are deliberately not symmetrical: the gauge turns downward sooner than upward. The full method is set out on Market regime.
The figures are from 14 August 2026, 12:09 UTC, and are updated every hour.
What this is not
A measurement of what has happened, not a forecast of what is going to happen. Sideways says nothing about the chance that the next move is up or down, and the fear index is a sentiment gauge, not a signal.
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