According to a Santiment analyst, sentiment amongst crypto market participants on social media has began the yr well. He warned that further market recovery relies on retail investors remaining prudent.
“We need retail to proceed to be a bit of bit cautious, a bit of bit pessimistic, a bit of bit impatient,” Santiment analyst Brian Quinlivan said in a video posted to YouTube on Saturday.
Although other crypto sentiment indicators show fear amongst market participants, Santiment's social media data points in the opposite direction, in accordance with Quinlivan.
This level has been “an issue” prior to now
“It’s very positive in the intervening time,” he said. “Usually that's a bit worrying, but on this case it’d just be a hello that we're back from vacation,” he added.
Quinlivan said he wasn't too frightened about “quite a lot of FOMO,” but added that it could come into the market if Bitcoin (BTC) quickly rises toward $92,000. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is trading at $89,930 on the time of publication, up 1.77% within the last 24 hours.
Bitcoin is down 3.32% within the last 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap
Quinlivan said a rapid rise in the worth of Bitcoin to this level will show the “true response of retail traders.” “If they begin pouring money into it because they are saying Bitcoin goes up, that might be bad,” he said.
Despite a historically strong January, cryptocurrencies are facing fear signals
Retail euphoria in crypto markets tends to spike near all-time highs or cycle peaks, and historically the market has fallen shortly afterward.
Analysts have previously argued that the crypto market often moves in the other way than most individuals expect when excitement becomes an excessive amount of.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures overall sentiment within the crypto market, announced a “fear” rating of 29 in its update on Saturday. Since the start of November 2025, the index has been within the “Fear” to “Extreme Fear” range.
However, January has historically been a robust month for each Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), with average gains since 2013 of three.75% for BTC and 19.07% for ETH, in accordance with CoinGlass.
