Sixfold Gap in Bitcoin Onchain Transfer Estimates Exposed

Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have found significant discrepancies in estimates of Bitcoin onchain transfer values. The study analyzed over 100 billion blockchain records across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron, revealing that measurement methods can vary by as much as sixfold.

The gap reflects differences in how transactions are measured, including the treatment of change outputs and other transfers back to the sender. This discrepancy stems largely from Bitcoin's transaction structure, where unspent funds are often returned to the sender as change, which can be counted as another output.

The study also found that measuring market capitalization has its own set of challenges. Conventional measures have been as much as four times higher than realized capitalization, which values each coin at the price when it last moved.