BIS: Bitcoin on-chain transfer volume can vary by a factor of 6 due to different UTXO handling methods.

BlockBeats news, September 16: A working paper by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) analyzed nearly 100 billion blockchain records from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron, finding that commonly used on-chain metrics in the crypto industry may have significant biases.

Research shows that the scale of Bitcoin on-chain transfers can vary by up to about 6 times depending on how unspent transaction outputs (UTXO) are handled. Researchers pointed out that on-chain metrics should be regarded as approximate data rather than precise indicators of economic activity. Additionally, the study found that Ethereum has about 13 million active contracts, including approximately 1.4 million tokens. Because decentralized trading, automated programs, and smart contract interactions generate a large number of on-chain events, raw on-chain data may overestimate or underestimate actual economic activity.

BIS researchers suggest that on-chain data analysis should fully consider the technical architecture of different blockchains and improve the transparency of metric statistical methods to avoid significant discrepancies across different data platforms caused by different approaches to UTXO handling or smart contract interaction filtering.