BIS paper finds major gap in Bitcoin onchain transfer estimates

A recent study by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reveals that standard onchain metrics for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins often provide misleading representations of actual economic activity. Researchers analyzed 100 billion blockchain records and discovered that Bitcoin transfer values can fluctuate by a factor of six depending on whether change outputs are correctly filtered. The report highlights that conventional market capitalization metrics can overstate value by up to four times compared to realized capitalization models. Furthermore, the study notes that Ethereum's complex smart contract ecosystem and the multi-chain nature of stablecoins like USDT make aggregate data difficult to interpret accurately. For instance, USDT on Ethereum is primarily utilized for DeFi, whereas USDT on Tron functions more as a payment and store-of-value asset. These findings suggest that current industry indicators are noisy approximations rather than precise economic data points. This research is critical for the RWA market, as institutional adoption of tokenized assets relies on transparent and reliable data to assess liquidity, usage, and systemic risk.