A Bank for International Settlements working paper found that Bitcoin onchain transfer value estimates can vary by up to sixfold depending on how transactions are measured. The study, spanning nearly 100 billion blockchain records across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron, found similar distortions in Bitcoin's market capitalization, Ethereum's smart contracts and stablecoin activity across chains.
Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements found that estimates of Bitcoin's onchain transfer value can vary by as much as sixfold depending on how transactions are measured. The paper, titled “Hidden by complexity? Measuring stablecoin, crypto and decentralised finance ecosystems,” examined nearly 100 billion blockchain records across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron.
The gap stems from Bitcoin's transaction structure. When users spend Bitcoin, unspent funds often return to the sender as change, which can be counted as a separate transfer even though it never reaches another party.
Market capitalization estimates diverge too
The measurement problem extends beyond transfer volumes. The study found Bitcoin's conventional market capitalization has at times been as much as four times higher than its realized capitalization, which values each coin at the price it last moved. The BIS researchers concluded that onchain indicators should be treated as "noisy approximations rather than direct measures of economic activity."
Ethereum and stablecoins show similar gaps
Ethereum's growing web of smart contracts complicates measurement further. Of the roughly 67.5 million active contracts the study examined, about 54 million could not be categorized under its classification system. Stablecoin activity also differs sharply by network: the share of USDT held by smart contracts on Ethereum exceeded 20% in 2022, compared with about 1% on Tron.
Some analytics providers already account for the gap. Visa's Onchain Analytics dashboard, which separates raw activity from adjusted volume, showed $6.4 trillion in total stablecoin transfers over the past 30 days compared with $313.1 billion in adjusted volume.
Data providers face pressure to standardize
Crypto Briefing reported that the gap puts pressure on data providers, since two analytics platforms reporting the same blockchain metric can produce vastly different numbers if they handle UTXOs or filter smart contract interactions differently. The BIS study used the institution's Mercurius data platform to run the analysis, treating Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron as structurally distinct systems rather than interchangeable ledgers denominated in the same unit of account.
Sources: Cointelegraph.com News, Crypto Briefing
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