BIS Study Reveals Major Gap in On-Chain Transfer Estimates
Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have found that estimates of Bitcoin on-chain transfer values can vary by as much as sixfold, depending on how transactions are measured. The study analyzed 100 billion blockchain records across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron.
The discrepancy stems from Bitcoin's transaction structure, where unspent funds are often returned to the sender as change, which can be counted as another output even though it doesn't represent funds being transferred to another party.
Similar measurement challenges extend across the broader crypto ecosystem. Ethereum presented a separate challenge due to the proliferation of smart contracts, with about 54 million contracts unable to be categorized using the classifications in the study.
The researchers also found that stablecoin activity presents additional challenges, as the same asset can serve different purposes across blockchains. For example, USDT on Ethereum was more closely linked to DeFi activity, while USDT on Tron was associated with payment-like and store-of-value purposes.