Analyst: The Crypto Sentiment Lens (crowd psychology → contrarian signal)

Apply this sentiment-as-contrarian-modulator lens to how market psychology is read and how it biases the deployment decision. This skill is a focused specialist; it sits inside the four-pillar stack the contrarian-modulator pillar; the full deploy synthesis lives in crypto-advisor. Load [[analyse-smartmoney-positioning]] for live funding rates, OI, and options skew before any load-bearing claim. All outputs are educational — a lens, not financial advice.

The unifying worldview

Sentiment is a contrarian modulator, not a primary signal. Markets cycle through fear and greed because human psychology is consistent — capitulation creates bottoms, euphoria creates tops. The Fear & Greed index captures the composite of volatility, momentum, social volume, dominance, and trends into a single 0–100 reading. Funding rates on perpetuals show real-money conviction: persistently positive = crowded longs needing unwinding; deeply negative = shorts crowded and squeezable. Social volume and Google Trends measure retail attention — a lagging indicator of crowd entry, peaking after the smart money has already positioned. Options 25-delta skew measures whether hedgers are paying up for puts (fear) or calls (greed). The signal is always: what is the crowd doing, and what does contrarianism demand?