The MarketVector Crypto Heat Index is a composite breadth indicator that quantifies market participation across the digital asset universe on a normalized scale from 0 to 1. Unlike sentiment tools that incorporate surveys, social media activity, or Google Trends data, the index is constructed exclusively from objective price and breadth data, making it verifiable, replicable, and suitable for systematic allocation frameworks.

The index aggregates four equally weighted sub-indicators, each capturing a distinct dimension of market health. The Percentage of Top 100 Assets Above the 200-Day Moving Average measures the share of constituents maintaining a long-term uptrend, reflecting broad structural confidence. The Altcoin Season Indicator measures the breadth of rotation into altcoins relative to Bitcoin over a rolling 90-day period, signaling speculative risk appetite when smaller assets begin to outperform at scale. The Net New 90-Day Highs/Lows tracks the rolling 30-day delta of new highs minus new lows across all MVDA 100 constituents, indicating whether an uptrend is underpinned by expanding leadership or a downtrend is reinforced by widening weakness. The Advance/Decline Line Slope examines the short-term slope of advancing versus declining assets in the top 50 MVDA coins over a rolling 30-day window, giving a pulse on whether gains are broadly shared or concentrated in a handful of names. Each component is mapped to a common 0–1 scale using robust percentile normalization based on the 5th and 95th historical percentiles to reduce outlier distortion, then combined into a single equally weighted daily composite.

The index delineates three sentiment zones that carry direct allocation meaning. A reading below 0.25 defines the Capitulation zone, indicating a state of extreme breadth compression where historical forward returns have been most favorable. Readings between 0.25 and 0.75 constitute the Neutral zone, reflecting normal cyclical conditions. Values above 0.75 define the Overheating zone, consistent with late-cycle breadth expansion and elevated drawdown risk.

The index embeds systematic rebalancing signals directly into its construction. An Add Exposure signal requires two conditions to be met simultaneously: the index must be below the 0.25 threshold and its 20-day SMA must cross above the 50-day SMA, ensuring that entry points are concentrated in periods of extreme pessimism showing early signs of trend reversal. A De-Risk signal is triggered when the index exceeds the 0.75 threshold and its 20-day SMA crosses below the 50-day SMA. The framework is designed for long-duration allocators seeking to capture major bull and bear market cycles, not for short-term trading.

The Relative Rotation Graph is a multi-dimensional visualization framework developed by Julius de Kempenaer that plots the relative strength and relative momentum of multiple assets or sectors against a common benchmark simultaneously. Each constituent is mapped using two proprietary metrics: the JdK RS-Ratio, which measures the level of relative performance against the benchmark (plotted on the x-axis), and the JdK RS-Momentum, which measures the rate of change of that relative performance (plotted on the y-axis). Both metrics are normalized around 100, with values above 100 indicating outperformance and improving trends respectively, and values below 100 indicating underperformance and deteriorating trends.

The canvas is divided into four quadrants that correspond to distinct phases of the relative performance cycle. The Leading quadrant (upper right) contains sectors with both strong relative strength and positive relative momentum, which is the area of maximum active overweight interest. The Weakening quadrant (lower right) holds sectors that remain relatively strong but are losing momentum, signaling potential rotation out. The Lagging quadrant (lower left) reflects sectors with both weak relative strength and negative momentum, which is the typical underweight zone. The Improving quadrant (upper left) captures sectors that are still underperforming the benchmark in absolute terms but are showing accelerating relative momentum, making them candidates for early rotation into. In this report, MVDA sectors defined by the MarketVector Digital Asset Classification Standard (MVDACS) are plotted against the MarketVector Digital Assets 100 Index as the benchmark, and historical trails over a rolling 14-day window are shown to visualize the direction and velocity of rotation.

The Crypto Rotation Index (CRI) is a breadth coherence indicator adapted from Norman Fosback’s High-Low Logic Index, originally developed for US equity markets in the 1970s. The traditional formulation identified a logical contradiction in market behavior: healthy bull market breadth should be characterized by an abundance of new highs and few new lows, not by simultaneous high readings in both. The index therefore takes the minimum of the new-highs ratio and the new-lows ratio, penalizing environments in which the market exhibits internally contradictory breadth. A low reading (few new lows and many new highs, or vice versa) is consistent with a coherent trend; a high reading signals internal fragmentation.

For the CRI, this construct is adapted to the digital asset universe using the MVDA constituent set on rolling 90-day lookback windows. Daily new-highs and new-lows counts are expressed as percentages of the total universe. The net new highs/lows ratio is then smoothed using a 14-day exponential moving average to reduce the signal noise inherent in a relatively small-capitalization universe subject to idiosyncratic volatility. The EMA output is the primary charted series.

The idea is simple: in a healthy market, most coins should move in the same direction. In a strong bull market, many coins make new highs and very few make new lows. In a bear market, many coins make new lows and few make new highs. When both new highs and new lows are elevated at the same time, the market is behaving “illogically.” This signals internal divergence and instability, which often occurs near major market turning points.

The Crypto Cycle Top Finder is a regime classification framework built on a breadth-at-peak metric. It monitors the percentage of MVDA Top-100 constituents trading above their own 90-day moving average at the precise moment the MVDA index itself sets a new all-time high. The core insight is that the quality of a market peak, specifically its forward-return distribution and drawdown severity, is materially conditioned on how broad the underlying participation is when that peak is established.

Historical episodes are classified into three zones based on breadth at the ATH moment. Full Steam episodes (breadth above 90%) are characterized by near-universal constituent participation, historically associated with the strongest subsequent rebounds and the highest probability of continued upside. Fading Thrust episodes (breadth between 75% and 90%) reflect a market reaching a new high with declining internal participation, a warning signal consistent with a maturing cycle. Breakdown episodes (breadth below 75%) indicate that the index ATH was set by a small minority of constituents while the majority of the universe was already in drawdown, which is historically the most bearish forward-return classification, associated with the deepest subsequent corrections.

When the MVDA index is not at an all-time high, the framework reports OFF PEAK status, tracking the percentage distance from the prior ATH and the number of elapsed days. Episode-level statistics, including duration, peak breadth, and subsequent forward returns at 30, 60, 90, and 180 days, are compiled across all catalogued cycles since 2017 to provide a conditioning framework for current market regime assessment.

The Crypto Breadth Thrust indicator is adapted from Martin Zweig’s original Breadth Thrust concept, which identified rare but historically reliable momentum events in US equity markets during which a sharp reversal in broad market participation, shifting from deeply oversold to broadly overbought in a compressed time window, signaling the initiation of powerful new bull phases. The adaptation to digital assets replaces the NYSE advance/decline mechanics with an MVDA constituent breadth measure based on the percentage of coins trading above a short-term threshold.

The signal mechanism operates in two sequential stages. The system enters an armed state when breadth drops below 20%, indicating that fewer than one in five constituents is in a near-term uptrend, a level consistent with maximum pessimism and breadth compression. Once armed, a Breadth Thrust signal fires if breadth subsequently surges above 80% within a 10-day window, confirming that the market has shifted rapidly from near-universal selling to near-universal buying. This two-condition structure is designed to filter out minor recoveries and require the kind of sharp, broad-based reversal that historically precedes sustained upside regimes.

Since 2017, the MVDA universe has generated five Breadth Thrust signals. Across all five, the 60-day and 90-day forward return hit rates are 100%, with average MVDA returns of +30.0% and +43.3% at those horizons respectively. The rarity of the signal, averaging fewer than one per year, and the consistency of the subsequent return profile make it one of the highest-conviction indicators in the breadth framework. The current report monitors the proximity of breadth to the arming threshold and tracks progress toward potential signal conditions in real time.