Bitcoin 

BTC

$17,206

 on Tuesday finally escaped the “extreme fear” zone after a whopping 73 days, coinciding with a 19% weekly increase in BTC as bulls make their way back to the market. 

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index increased from “extreme fear” to merely “fearful” on Tuesday, reaching a score of 30 out of 100. It has gained slightly since then to the current index score of 31.

The Index analyzes the current sentiment of the overall crypto market, scoring between 0 to 100. The index is based mainly on Bitcoin market volatility, volume and dominance, social media sentiment, surveys and search trend data. 

On-chain metrics firm Santiment on Twitter noted that traders are “changing their tune” and are starting to look toward a long-term breakout of the cryptocurrency.

According to the firm, BTC’s average funding rate on exchanges has hit its highest levels in the last two months as BTC’s price rises above $23,600 — which could indicate a level of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is present.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz continues to tout optimism for the lead cryptocurrency, telling a Bloomberg conference on Tuesday that he expects BTC to surge above $500,000 within the next 5 years:

“This is a story of two things — it is about adoption and global economics. And while this is a bump in the road in adoption, it is certainly not a U-turn”.

“We continue to see institutions […] that haven’t gotten involved yet, who see this as an opportunity,” he added.

Novogratz also believes “the worst has happened” and “now we’re rebuilding with a couple good days in a row.” He also noted that there is “a good story with Ethereum and the Merge, the global macro markets are at max bearishness.”

Related: Is the bottom in? Raoul Pal, Scaramucci load up, Novogratz and Hayes weigh in

On the other hand, Grayscale’s “Bear Markets in Perspective” report suggests that the current bear market may last for another 250 days.

Product-comparison platform Finder has made a similar prediction as part of a Bitcoin prediction survey on July 12, with five Fintech professionals at Finder and 53 industry experts suggesting that BTC will bottom out at $13,676 before making an uptrend toward $100,000 before 2025 and $300,000 by 2030.

Bitcoin is priced at $23,318 at the time of writing.