Beyond on-chain charts: three tools for Bitcoin research
ChartsOnChain forms a starting point for analysis of Bitcoin on-chain indicators from a range of categories, including valuation, supply-side profitability and holder behavior. A closer look at an apparently surprising figure needs the insight that informed its calculation, or clarification on the range of coins which contributed. Preparing a transaction involves a further set of information: current fee rates and demand for the space within upcoming blocks.
Bitbo: estimating transaction fees
Making a transfer into cold storage, you may be willing to allow a greater time to elapse before confirmation than when making a time-sensitive commitment. Bitbo's Bitcoin transaction fee calculator uses the number of inputs and outputs in the intended payment to estimate its size, then quotes a fee in satoshis and dollars for the selected confirmation time target.
Fee rates are quoted in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB); multiply the quoted rate by the transaction's "virtual size" in vB to estimate the satoshi cost. Spending more bitcoin will not automatically make it more expensive to pay a fee, as the transaction's virtual size could well increase significantly by spending smaller amounts from several outputs.
The larger payment in this example shows a transaction of 200 vbytes containing a 21-vbyte OP_RETURN output, with a rate of 10 sat/vB paying 2,000 satoshis in fees. At 5 sat/vB, the analogous fee would come to 1,000. So, before sending, compare your wallet’s fee with this estimate.
A primary dashboard for Bitbo meanwhile shows the next block's estimated fee rates, alongside 30- and 60-minute projections, and statistics concerning the mempool. A 30-minute estimate cannot guarantee confirmation within the specified time frame, as higher-fee-rate transactions could be seen at any given moment, while the schedule of blocks cannot be expected to conform to fixed intervals. A transaction with no deadline allows the sender to select more relaxed targets.
Glassnode Docs: reading the calculation
Two identical-sounding series can show radically divergent figures across distinct implementations based upon filters or alternative price references, methods of grouping the coins or other aspects of analysis. Glassnode's Bitcoin on-chain metrics documentation goes into detail about the decisions made in calculating their own ranges of series.
Their realized capitalization provides a sum of each unspent output's value at the price prevailing during its most recent movement, therefore estimating how much it was worth at a point in time which may well have been earlier. This can update when BTC moves between internally controlled addresses, without there being anything which qualifies as a purchase. It is not therefore a summary of all of the money which has been paid into Bitcoin by investors.
SOPR measures the ratio between the total USD value of all outputs spent at a given point, in terms of their value at the point of spending as opposed to their creation. Although their description of aSOPR indicates that they remove the outputs which were spent in less than an hour after creation, this can create completely new figures which indicate different activity. The exclusion of this activity from calculation means the two sets of SOPR series can show divergent values for a single day, and should not be assumed to reflect different holder behaviors. While the term "SOPR" applies to both, the filters which apply are not fully indicated in either caption.
Glassnode's guides provide discussion concerning behaviors in the market, but one can use their definitions as a technical reference without adopting all of their associated arguments. One must always refer to the methods described by each provider when attempting to interpret a feature which appears in another's work, as the definitions presented by Glassnode do not automatically indicate how a different implementation might calculate another metric of the same name.
CoreCharts: examinations of spending and accumulation
CoreCharts currently offers free advanced Bitcoin on-chain charts including the metrics of Spent Volume Age Bands & Accumulation Trend Score, as well as Supply in Profit and Loss.
Spent Volume Age Bands (SVAB) categorizes volume of BTC spending according to how old the spent outputs were which contributed. Within the view of a burst of activity, it creates an opportunity for analysis of whether it came from a preponderance of recently moved coins, or older balances. An older segment may increase in percentage merely because the volume coming from younger inputs has declined, even without any increase in the amounts spent from older BTC. What looks like an increase in older BTC spent could in fact be a redistribution of what is being spent.
Accumulation Trend Score (ATS) measures relative accumulation strength of each of six balance cohorts, while its cohort heatmap indicates whether stronger ATS readings apply across several wider bands of address balance, or only within one or two. As each cohort is viewed as an isolated category for score calculations, identical scores can well reflect widely varying amounts of bitcoin between the groups. Weak readings of the aggregated score only indicate weak or absent accumulation at an aggregated level, and must be related to what this suggests in comparison to the movements shown within the individual cohorts. The categories of addresses cannot be seen as equivalent to actual investors.
Supply in Profit and Loss shows how much BTC is held below its cost basis, both as a percentage of supply and in absolute BTC. CoreCharts also offers related metrics that show how supply is distributed relative to cost basis. At times of price declines, coins can enter the loss category without being spent.
Thus, ChartsOnChain can serve as your day-over-day dashboard for a birds-eye view of the market. The Glassnode Docs library serves as a great reference for metric definitions and filters, and CoreCharts provides a closer look at spending by coin age and accumulation across address-balance groups. For a planned transfer, multiply the Bitbo estimated fee rate by the virtual size of the transaction and compare the fee amount in your wallet before initiating the transfer.