Mycelia Signal already publishes MSVI — a cryptographically signed composite volatility index for BTC and ETH. MSVI tells you how much the market is moving relative to history. What it doesn't tell you is which direction leveraged money is positioned, or whether the market is structurally fragile independent of price direction.
Today we're adding two new signed indices to answer those questions: MSXI, a directional sentiment index ranging from −100 to +100, and MSSI, a market-wide stress index ranging from 0 to 100. Like MSVI, both are pay-per-query, cryptographically signed with Ed25519, and independently verifiable against our published public key.
Delayed 5 minutes. Unsigned preview data. Signed API docs →
MSXI measures directional positioning across five independent signals. The sign matters: positive values indicate net bullish positioning, negative values indicate bearish positioning, and the magnitude reflects conviction. The scale runs from −100 (extreme bearish) to +100 (extreme bullish).
| Component | Weight | Source | Signal direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Rate (FR) | 30% | Binance, Bybit perpetuals | Positive funding = longs paying = bullish |
| Options Skew (SKEW) | 25% | Deribit options book | 25D risk reversal: calls bid = bullish, puts bid = bearish |
| Put/Call Ratio (PCR) | 20% | Deribit options book | Inverted — put-heavy = bearish, call-heavy = bullish |
| Term Structure (TS) | 15% | Deribit options book | Inverted — backwardation = near-term fear = bearish |
| Basis (BASIS) | 10% | Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Bitstamp | Inverted — spread widening = fragmentation = bearish |
Each component is z-scored against its own rolling history before composition. This means MSXI reads the current state relative to recent norms, not against an absolute scale. A funding rate of 0.03% is not inherently bullish or bearish — what matters is whether it's elevated relative to the past 30 days.
We reconstructed daily MSXI values for BTC from January 2020 to April 2026 using available funding rate and options data. Three components — funding rate, PCR, and basis — have complete historical coverage via Binance and Deribit APIs. Skew and term structure data for the full period required partial modelling consistent with documented options market behaviour during major events. ETH MSXI launched live on April 11, 2026 — historical backtest for ETH will be published separately as live history accumulates.
The near-zero mean over six years is expected: MSXI measures positioning, not returns. Over a long enough window, bullish and bearish periods average out. Both extremes occurred in unusual circumstances. The all-time low of −65.3 came on January 6, 2021 — the crowd was heavily short as BTC ripped from $29k to $40k in eight days, fighting the trend. The all-time high of +74.2 came on November 10, 2022 — the day after FTX's collapse — as a violent short squeeze drove funding extreme positive in a single session before collapsing back to neutral the following day. Both readings are mechanically correct; neither reflects sustained directional conviction.
| Date | MSXI BTC | Regime | BTC Price | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-03-13 | −7.5 | NEUTRAL | $5,579 | COVID crash peak — panic short covering overwhelmed any bearish positioning |
| 2021-01-06 | −65.3 | EXTREMEBEARISH | $36,769 | All-time low — crowd shorting BTC as it ripped from $29k to $40k in 8 days |
| 2022-11-09 | +36.2 | BULLISH | $15,923 | FTX collapse day — shorts crowded, contrarian signal |
| 2022-11-10 | +74.2 | BULLISH | $17,601 | All-time high — FTX short squeeze, funding flipped extreme positive in one day |
| 2023-03-11 | +12.1 | NEUTRAL | $20,456 | SVB / USDC depeg — balanced positioning |
| 2024-01-10 | −12.0 | NEUTRAL | $46,654 | ETF approval — slight bearish positioning pre-approval |
FTX short squeeze — two days, two extremes. On Nov 9, shorts piled in as FTX collapsed — funding went extreme negative, driving MSXI to +36.2 BULLISH as a contrarian oversold signal. On Nov 10, BTC bounced 10% and the short squeeze drove funding extreme positive, pushing MSXI to its all-time high of +74.2 in a single session. By Nov 11 it had collapsed to −4.9 NEUTRAL. MSXI correctly captured the mechanical positioning dynamics across all three days. It did not and cannot detect the underlying counterparty risk that triggered the event.
MSSI measures systemic market stress independent of price direction. A high MSSI reading means the market is structurally fragile — volatility is elevated, stablecoin pegs are under pressure, or funding positions are so extreme that the liquidation cascade risk is high. MSSI does not predict price direction. It predicts the potential severity of dislocations if they occur.
| Component | Weight | Source | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility Regime (VOL) | 35% | MSVI — BTC + ETH averaged | Current MSVI normalised 0–100. High vol = structural fragility. |
| Stablecoin Stress (STBL) | 30% | Price service — USDT/USD, USDC/USD | Max absolute deviation from $1.00. 2% depeg = 100 stress. |
| Funding Extremity (FR) | 35% | Binance, Bybit perpetuals | Absolute z-score of OI-weighted composite. Direction irrelevant — magnitude only. |
The critical design choice in MSSI is the funding component: it uses the absolute z-score, not the signed value. An extreme negative funding rate is as dangerous as an extreme positive one — both indicate a market that is over-positioned in one direction and vulnerable to a sharp reversal.
We reconstructed daily MSSI values from January 2020 to April 2026. The volatility and funding rate components have full historical coverage. The stablecoin component prior to 2022 reflects USDT deviations only, as USDC had insufficient trading history before that date.
| Event | Date | MSSI | Regime | STBL | BTC Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COVID pre-crash | 2020-03-01 | 46.0 | ELEVATED | 0.0 | $8,532 |
| COVID crash peak | 2020-03-13 | 91.2 | EXTREME | 0.0 | $5,579 |
| May 2021 deleveraging | 2021-05-19 | 40.7 | ELEVATED | 0.0 | $36,690 |
| FTX collapse | 2022-11-09 | 7.9 | CALM | 0.0 | $15,923 |
| SVB / USDC depeg | 2023-03-11 | 36.7 | ELEVATED | 100.0 | $20,456 |
| ETF approval | 2024-01-10 | 14.9 | CALM | 0.0 | $46,654 |
The COVID peak reading of 91.2 EXTREME is the highest in the backtest history. All five of the top historical readings occurred in February and March 2020 — a concentrated period of genuine systemic market stress driven by extreme volatility, dislocation in perpetual funding, and real fear of cascading liquidations.
FTX's collapse on November 9, 2022 registered as 7.9 CALM on MSSI. This is the correct reading, and understanding why it's correct explains what MSSI actually measures.
FTX was a counterparty event, not a structural market stress event. On the day of the collapse: spot volatility was elevated but not extreme, stablecoins held their pegs, and funding rates were negative but not at extremes. The market structure was not fragile — it was absorbing a single large exogenous shock. Cascading liquidations did not materialise at the exchange-infrastructure level. BTC fell ~25% in a week, but the derivatives market didn't seize up the way it did in March 2020.
MSSI measures structural fragility, not price direction. A counterparty failure that leaves market infrastructure intact will read CALM. A volatility event that saturates funding rates and pushes stablecoin pegs will read EXTREME. These are different phenomena and the index correctly distinguishes them.
The SVB/USDC depeg in March 2023 is the clearest illustration of MSSI's stablecoin component. USDC briefly traded at $0.87 — an 13% depeg — as Circle disclosed $3.3B in SVB deposits. MSSI registered ELEVATED at 36.7, with the STBL component hitting 100. No other index captures this signal.
The two indices are most useful in combination. MSSI tells you about structure; MSXI tells you about positioning. Together they define four distinct market regimes.
As of today: MSXI BTC is −12.6 NEUTRAL (slight bearish lean), MSXI ETH is +3.5 NEUTRAL, and MSSI is 47.0 ELEVATED. This places the market in a transitional zone — stress is building but positioning hasn't committed to a direction. Not a clean signal for either bulls or bears.
They are signed data products. Every paid query returns a canonical string and an Ed25519 signature verifiable against our published public key. The signature covers the full component breakdown — you can verify not just the headline number but every input. This is the same attestation model as MSVI.
They are not price prediction models. MSXI measures how leveraged money is positioned, not where price will go. MSSI measures structural fragility, not the probability of a crash. A market can be EXTREMEBULLISH on MSXI and keep going up. A market can be ELEVATED on MSSI and never experience a dislocation. These indices describe current conditions; they do not forecast outcomes.
They are accumulating live history. The backtest components derived from the Deribit options book — skew and term structure — required partial historical modelling due to options data availability constraints. The indices have been live since April 11, 2026. A full backtest including all five MSXI components will be published as live history accumulates.
Not investment advice. These indices are informational data products. They do not constitute investment advice. Past index readings do not predict future market outcomes.
Both indices are available via the same payment rails as all Mycelia Signal endpoints: L402 (Lightning, 500 sats per query) and x402 (USDC on Base, $0.05 per query). Free unsigned preview endpoints are available at no cost.
# Free preview — no payment or account required
curl https://api.myceliasignal.com/oracle/sentiment/btc/usd/preview
curl https://api.myceliasignal.com/oracle/sentiment/eth/usd/preview
curl https://api.myceliasignal.com/oracle/stress/market/preview
Both indices are also available in the ElizaOS plugin v1.1.4 and LangChain plugin v1.3.2, which were updated today alongside this launch.
Free preview endpoints — no payment or account required. Paid queries return cryptographically signed Ed25519 attestations verifiable against our published public key. Both BTC and ETH pairs available for MSXI. MSSI is market-wide.
Mycelia Signal is an independent oracle publishing cryptographically signed price, economic, and market index data. All endpoints are pay-per-query with no subscriptions or accounts required. myceliasignal.com