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Bitcoin Data GuideBitcoin Reference

On-Chain Analytics

Realised Capitalisation

Market capitalisation values every coin at today's price. Realised capitalisation values each coin at the price it last moved. The difference between the two is the basis for a family of metrics, and it is also where the assumptions begin.

Last reviewed 2026-09-21Source: Coin Metrics realised capitalisation methodology; Bitcoin Core UTXO setNo figure is quoted here. The metric is a construction whose value depends on the provider's price series and output treatment.

The definition

The ledger records, for every output, the transaction that created it and the transaction that spent it. The moment of creation is associated with a price, because the market price at that time is known. Realised capitalisation takes each unspent output, values it at the price when it last moved, and sums the results across the supply. The figure is therefore a cost-basis-weighted total rather than a market-price one.

The intuition the metric is meant to capture is that coins which have not moved in a long time carry an old, often low, cost basis, while coins that changed hands recently carry a basis close to the current price. A realised capitalisation well below the market capitalisation suggests that much of the supply was acquired at lower prices, which is offered as evidence that holders are sitting on unrealised gains.

The metric is a construction, not a measurement. It depends on a definition of which outputs count, on a price series for the moment each output moved, and on the assumption that the entity which received an output is the entity that still controls it. Each of those is a choice, and the figure moves when the choice changes.

How it is built

Building the metric requires a full view of the unspent output set and a price for every point in time at which an output moved. The first comes from running a node with the transaction index enabled, or from a dataset built from one. The second comes from a price series, and the choice of series matters: a metric built on one exchange's price will differ from one built on another's, and the difference is largest in the early years when the market was thin.

The calculation also has to decide how to treat outputs whose creation price is unknown or disputed, and how to handle coins that are provably lost. A coin sent to an unspendable output has a cost basis but no holder, and whether it belongs in the total is a definitional choice. Different providers make different choices, so two realised capitalisation figures can differ without either being wrong.

The result is usually presented as a series rather than a single number, because the interesting information is in how it changes. A rising realised capitalisation means coins are moving at higher prices than before, which is consistent with new demand arriving at higher levels. A flat one means the supply is not moving, which is consistent with holding.

What it can and cannot support

The metric can support statements about the price at which the current unspent supply last changed hands. That is a fact about the ledger, given the price series used. It cannot support statements about who holds the coins or what they intend to do, because the ledger does not record ownership. A coin that has not moved may be held deliberately, lost, or simply forgotten, and the metric cannot distinguish between those cases.

The metric is also sensitive to exchange behaviour. When an exchange moves coins between its own wallets, the outputs are spent and recreated, and their cost basis is reset to the current price even though no economic transfer occurred. A large internal reshuffle can therefore move the realised capitalisation without any change in holder behaviour, which is a known distortion rather than a rare edge case.

The honest way to read the metric is as one input among several. It is a useful summary of the cost basis embedded in the supply, and it is a poor basis for a prediction. The limits of blockchain analysis page sets out the broader pattern of inference that this metric shares.

Sources and references

The description of the metric and its construction is taken from the published methodology of the providers that compute it, and from the ledger structure it depends on.

  • The metric and its methodology. Coin Metrics, Realised Capitalisation: documents the definition, the price series used and the treatment of unspent outputs.
  • The unspent output model the metric reads. Bitcoin, Bitcoin Developer Guide — Transactions: describes how outputs are created, spent and tracked on the ledger.
  • The limits of ledger-based inference. Meiklejohn et al., A Fistful of Bitcoins: characterises the address clustering and attribution assumptions that ledger analysis rests on.

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