The Bank for International Settlements published a working paper analyzing nearly 100 billion blockchain records and demonstrating that commonly used metrics for measuring cryptocurrency economic activity are far less reliable than the industry assumes. The core issue lies in handling Bitcoin UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs): depending on the approach used to account for change, transfer volumes can vary by a factor of six. Covering Bitcoin, Ethereum with approximately 13 million active contracts, and Tron, the study concludes that onchain indicators should be treated as rough approximations rather than precise metrics. Stablecoins, identified as the dominant driver of trading activity, show radically different usage profiles across blockchains, underscoring the need for methodological standardization or greater transparency in reporting.
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