Live prices are currently unavailable — the exchange feed could not be reached and no recent cached reading is held.

Bitcoin Data GuideBitcoin Reference

On-Chain Analytics

What the ledger can and cannot be asked

Bitcoin's ledger is public, which makes it tempting to treat every question about the market as answerable from the chain alone. Some of them are. This hub collects the pages that explain which: how a cost-basis-weighted measure of the supply is constructed, what a coin-age metric is intended to capture, how exchange flows are measured and where the attribution behind them breaks down. The recurring theme is that an on-chain metric is an inference built on assumptions, and the assumptions are where the interesting part of the analysis lives.

The appeal of on-chain data is that it appears to be objective. The chain records what happened, and a metric computed from it looks like a measurement rather than an opinion. That appearance is worth examining. Every on-chain metric begins with a definition — which outputs count, how they are weighted, what window is used — and the definition is a choice. Change the choice and the number changes, often enough to reverse the conclusion drawn from it.

The pages here take the common metrics apart in that spirit. Each one states the definition it uses, shows how the figure is built from the ledger, and then says plainly what the metric can support and what it cannot. Where a metric depends on attributing addresses to a known entity, the page treats that attribution as the weak link it is rather than as a settled fact. The aim is not to dismiss on-chain analysis but to make its assumptions visible, so a reader can judge a claim that cites one.

Valuation Measures

What can the ledger say about what holders paid?

The ledger records every output and the moment it was created, which means it is possible to reconstruct, for each coin, the price at which it last moved. Aggregating that across the supply produces a cost-basis-weighted measure of the network rather than a market-price one, and the difference between the two is the basis for a family of valuation metrics. This strand explains how those measures are constructed, what they are intended to capture, and why a figure derived from the ledger is still an inference about behaviour rather than a direct observation of it.

Start with Realised Capitalisation

Flow Measures

What can be said about where coins are moving?

A large share of on-chain analysis rests on the claim that certain addresses belong to exchanges, and that coins moving to them are being prepared for sale while coins leaving them are being withdrawn for holding. The claim is plausible and sometimes useful, but it depends on address attribution that is never certain and on a behavioural assumption that is never tested. This strand sets out how exchange flows are measured, how the addresses are identified, and the specific ways the inference can fail — from internal wallet shuffling that looks like a deposit to a change in an exchange's custody practices that breaks the series entirely.

Start with Exchange Flows

Every page in this section

The strands above are the way in. This is the full contents of the section, grouped by whether the page covers a valuation measure or a flow measure.

Flows & Attribution

Measures that depend on identifying who owns an address, and the tracing heuristics and attribution limits that decide how much they can support.

The reference pages behind the strands

The strands above explain the metrics. These pages hold the underlying record and the methodology, for when you want to check a figure or follow a source.

Where the metrics meet the market record

On-chain measures are usually read against the price record. These pages carry the measured market history they are compared with.