Narrative Maturity

Methodology · Sector stage on the adoption curve

For each of the ten crypto sectors CryptoArrow tracks, this assigns a stage on the adoption curve, Dormant through Cooling, and a maturity index from 0 to 100. A higher index means further along the lifecycle, which means closer to a rotation point. It reports the current stage. It does not predict when a sector will turn.

The question it answers

Where is each narrative sitting on its adoption curve right now? Like every other metric here, the answer is descriptive. We report the stage. Whether to do anything about it is your call.

The five stages

  • Dormant · index 0 to 15. No meaningful momentum on either window. The pre-narrative state.
  • Awakening · 15 to 35. Short-term momentum building, breadth still narrow. Early movers entering.
  • Building · 35 to 65. Broad participation with momentum confirming on both windows.
  • Mainstream · 65 to 85. Weekly action strong, short-term decelerating. The late majority.
  • Cooling · 85 to 100. Short-term momentum negative, breadth weakening.

Inputs

The current version uses sector momentum signals only: the average 24-hour change across the sector’s tokens, the average 7-day change, the existing 0 to 100 sector heat score, and the number of tokens classified into the sector. This is deliberately minimal, so that every input is a measured price fact rather than an inferred one.

Stablecoins are removed from every sector before scoring, since they sit pinned near zero and would flatten the read.

Stage classification

The rules are applied in order, and the first match wins:

  • No tokens classified in the sector, so the stage is Dormant.
  • 24-hour change at or below negative 3% with the 7-day change at or below zero, so short-term has rolled over with weekly confirmation. Cooling.
  • 7-day change at or below negative 5% with the 24-hour change at or below plus 1%, a weekly downtrend with no short-term recovery. Cooling.
  • Both windows essentially flat, under 1.5% on the day and under 2% on the week. Dormant.
  • 24-hour change above plus 1.5% with the week at or below plus 3%, a short-term wake-up without weekly confirmation. Awakening.
  • 7-day change at or above plus 12% while the 24-hour change is below a quarter of it, meaning strong week with a decelerating day. Mainstream.
  • Both windows positive and roughly aligned, above plus 1.5% on the day and plus 3% on the week. Building.
  • Anything else defaults to Awakening, the conservative reading.

The thresholds are calibrated to the typical volatility of crypto sectors. They need revisiting if that changes materially, since a 1% move is noise in one environment and a signal in another.

The maturity index

Within each stage’s band, the index is positioned by how strongly the sector expresses that stage’s defining signal. Dormant sits near its floor when the flatness is more pronounced. Awakening rises as the day’s momentum grows relative to the week. Building rises as both signals strengthen together. Mainstream rises with the divergence between a strong week and a weak day. Cooling rises as both signals go deeper negative.

A small nudge from the sector heat score, capped at 8% of the band width, stabilises sectors sitting near a stage boundary. Without it, a tiny change in the daily number could swing the index by twenty points as the stage flipped.

What is deliberately not shown

Days-in-stage and a stage transition history are not published. The classifier is sensitive by design and flips on daily price noise, measured at more than fifteen stage changes a month even after smoothing. A days-in-stage figure or a transition log reconstructed from raw daily flips would be misleading, so both stay out until a debounced daily stage capture exists with enough hysteresis that one noisy day cannot register a transition. Showing nothing beats showing a number that is not real.

The sector sparklines that are shown are real: an equal-weight price index over the trailing fortnight, built from daily closes and normalised to 100 at the start of the window. A sector with fewer than two members carrying daily history shows no sparkline rather than a fabricated one.

Known limitations

  • It is a sector-level metric, and never a signal about any individual token.
  • It does not predict when a sector will rotate. It reports the current stage.
  • It does not account for off-chain catalysts such as regulation, product launches or hacks directly. Those show up only once they move the underlying price data, which happens with a lag.
  • The stages have not yet been calibrated against historical retrospective labels.
  • Sector definitions overlap, so a token classified in two sectors contributes to both.

Mechanical analysis. Not investment advice. See the Terms of Service.