Bitcoin On-Chain Glossary

On-chain analysis has a vocabulary problem. Most of the ideas are simple (what did people pay for their coins, how long have they held them, are miners making money), but they arrive wrapped in acronyms that make them sound harder than they are.

This page is the short version: each term in two or three sentences, written for someone who wants to read a chart, not build one. Where we publish a live chart or a deeper write-up, the link sits right under the definition.

Terms are listed A to Z, because you usually come here with one word in mind and no idea which family it belongs to.

0–9

200-week moving average

Bitcoin's average price over roughly the last four years, updated weekly. Because it spans a full cycle, it moves slowly and has historically acted as a long-term floor reference rather than a trading level.

Go deeper: 200-week moving average chart

2-Year MA Multiplier

A price-only cycle tool built from two lines: the 2-year moving average and the same average multiplied by five. Price below the lower line has historically meant cheap; above the upper line, overheated.

Go deeper: 2-Year MA Multiplier chart

B

Backtest

Running a rule or indicator against historical data to see how it would have done. Useful, but easy to fool yourself with: test enough variations and one will look brilliant purely by chance.

Go deeper: why backtests lie · 2,255 strategies against DCA

Block

A batch of transactions that a miner adds to the chain, on average every ten minutes. Each block references the one before it, and its position in the chain is called its height.

Go deeper: live block height from our node

Block subsidy

The newly created bitcoin a miner collects for each block it finds. It is the only way new coins enter circulation, and it halves at every halving.

Go deeper: next halving countdown

C

Circulating supply

All the bitcoin issued so far. Any node can count it, and the count comes in slightly below what the issuance schedule says, because a small amount was never claimed by miners or can never be spent by design.

Go deeper: how many bitcoin actually exist · live supply and holders

Coin age

How long it has been since a given coin last moved. It is the raw input behind HODL waves, the short-term/long-term holder split and coin days.

Go deeper: HODL waves chart

Coin day

A unit that combines amount and time: one bitcoin sitting still for one day accrues one coin day. Ten bitcoin left untouched for a year accrue 3,650.

Go deeper: SOPR chart, with daily CDD

Coin days destroyed (CDD)

When a coin that has been sitting still finally moves, all the coin days it had built up are "destroyed." CDD spikes flag old coins waking up, which says far more than the same volume of coins bought last week.

Go deeper: SOPR chart, with daily CDD

Cohort

A group of coins or wallets that share a trait: age, balance size or the price they last moved at. Splitting the market into cohorts shows that different holders behave very differently.

Go deeper: HODL waves · holder distribution

Custodian

A company holding bitcoin on behalf of others: an exchange, an ETF's custodian, a bank offering custody. On-chain you only see its addresses, so one custodian reshuffling wallets can look like thousands of people moving coins.

Go deeper: what exchange flows do and don't show

Cycle

One of Bitcoin's multi-year rounds of boom and bust, historically in step with the halving. That the pattern has repeated doesn't mean it has to repeat the same way.

Go deeper: cycle comparison chart · the four-year cycle, tested

Cycle phase

The label NodeWitness uses to summarize where the market sits in the cycle, based on the Cycle Score. There are five, from Strong Accumulation to Strong Distribution, with a neutral band in the middle.

Go deeper: live Bitcoin cycle phase

D

Difficulty

The bar a miner's block has to clear to be valid. The network raises or lowers it automatically so that blocks keep arriving every ten minutes on average, however much hashing power is connected.

Go deeper: next difficulty adjustment

Difficulty epoch

The 2,016-block stretch, about two weeks, after which the network recalculates difficulty. Blocks came faster than ten minutes on average: difficulty goes up. Slower: it goes down.

Go deeper: next difficulty adjustment

Dominance

Bitcoin's share of the total value of all crypto assets. Rising dominance means money is concentrating in bitcoin; falling dominance means it is spreading out to everything else.

Go deeper: live Bitcoin market data

Dormancy

The average number of days the coins moved in a given period had been sitting still. High dormancy means seasoned holders are spending; low dormancy means the activity is mostly recent coins changing hands.

Go deeper: SOPR chart, with dormancy

Dormant coins

Bitcoin that hasn't moved in years. From the outside, a holder sitting tight on purpose and a holder who lost the keys look exactly the same.

Go deeper: HODL waves

E–F

Exchange flows

The difference between bitcoin moving onto exchanges and bitcoin moving off them. Sustained outflows are usually read as accumulation and inflows as selling pressure, though part of the traffic is just custodians reorganizing their own wallets.

Go deeper: what exchange flows really measure

Fear & Greed Index

A sentiment gauge from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed), published by alternative.me from volatility, price momentum, volume, social media and dominance, among other inputs. It isn't an on-chain metric, but it is often read alongside them.

Go deeper: today's Fear & Greed Index · how the index works · the most common misreading

Fees

What a sender pays to get a transaction into a block. They depend on how much block space the transaction takes up and how many others are competing for the same block, not on how much bitcoin is being sent.

Go deeper: Bitcoin fees today

Full node

A computer that downloads and checks every block and transaction since the first one, trusting no one. NodeWitness's own metrics are computed against one, and you can compare its live block height with any public explorer.

Go deeper: our node's live status · what you can verify yourself

H

Halving

The protocol-scheduled cut, by half, of the new bitcoin paid to miners per block. It happens every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years.

Go deeper: next halving countdown · the four-year cycle, tested

Hash

A single attempt by a miner to find a valid block. Think of it as a lottery ticket: almost all of them lose, and the more you buy per second, the better your odds.

Go deeper: hashrate chart

Hash Ribbons

An indicator that compares the 30-day and 60-day moving averages of hashrate. When the short one drops below the long one, miners are switching machines off; when it crosses back up and price momentum turns with it, the capitulation is considered over.

Go deeper: Hash Ribbons chart · Puell Multiple, Hash Ribbons and cycle bottoms

Hashrate

The total computing power the network spends on mining, in hashes per second. It is measured in EH/s (quintillions of hashes per second), and the higher it is, the more expensive the network is to attack.

Go deeper: hashrate chart

HODL

Holding bitcoin through thick and thin instead of selling. It started as a typo of "hold" in a 2013 forum post and stuck.

Go deeper: holders who don't sell, and what that really means

HODL waves

A stacked chart that slices the whole supply by how long each coin has gone unmoved: under a day, a week to a month, one to two years, ten years and beyond. Older bands thickening means people are holding; thinning means they are spending.

Go deeper: HODL waves chart · HODL waves explained

Holder distribution

How bitcoin is spread across addresses by balance, from dust holding a few sats up to whales. One person can own many addresses and one exchange holds millions of customers' coins, so treat it as a sketch, not a census.

Go deeper: holder distribution chart · how to read it

I–L

Issuance

The new bitcoin created over a period, always as a reward to miners. It follows a fixed schedule that halves at each halving, which is why the total can never exceed 21 million.

Go deeper: how many bitcoin actually exist

Liveliness

The share of all coin days ever accumulated that has since been spent. Rising liveliness means old coins are circulating; falling liveliness means the network is saving more than it moves. Its mirror image is called vaultedness.

Log scale

A chart axis where equal vertical distances represent equal percentage changes, so going from 1 to 10 takes the same space as going from 10,000 to 100,000. It is the natural way to view Bitcoin's price over many years.

Long-term holder (LTH)

Coins that haven't moved in roughly 155 days or more, the point past which they become statistically unlikely to be spent. Together they make up long-term holder supply, and their realized price is the veterans' average cost.

Go deeper: STH and LTH realized price · LTH supply in loss · what it means when LTHs are underwater

Lost coins

Bitcoin whose keys nobody holds anymore. The network still counts them as unspent, so they can only ever be estimated, never measured.

Go deeper: unspendable vs. lost bitcoin

M

Market cap

Every bitcoin in circulation multiplied by the current price: what the whole network would be worth if every coin were valued at the last trade.

Go deeper: Bitcoin price today

Mayer Multiple

Price divided by its 200-day moving average. A reading of 1 means price is sitting right on trend; well above, stretched; well below, depressed relative to it.

Go deeper: Mayer Multiple chart

Mempool

The waiting room for transactions that are valid but haven't made it into a block yet. When it fills up, the fee needed to jump into the next block goes up.

Go deeper: fees and mempool today

Miner

Whoever runs the machines that search for valid blocks. Finding one earns the block subsidy plus the fees of every transaction included in it.

Go deeper: live network and mining data

Miner capitulation

A stretch when part of the mining industry stops being profitable and powers down. It shows up as a hashrate drop and often as forced selling of the bitcoin miners had been holding.

Go deeper: Hash Ribbons chart · checking capitulation on-chain

Moving average

The average of the last N values, rolled forward one day at a time. It smooths out noise so the trend shows, at the cost of always lagging, and the longer the window, the bigger the lag.

Moving-average crossover

The moment one moving average moves from below another to above it, or vice versa. Several well-known signals, Hash Ribbons and the Pi Cycle Top among them, are simply a well-chosen crossover.

Go deeper: Hash Ribbons chart · the weekly MACD, another crossover

MVRV

Market cap divided by realized cap; in other words, today's price against the network's average cost basis. An MVRV of 2 means the average coin is worth twice what it cost. It can also be split into short-term and long-term holder versions.

Go deeper: realized price chart, with MVRV · STH and LTH MVRV · why its cycle thresholds keep shrinking

MVRV Z-Score

The gap between market cap and realized cap, measured in standard deviations. It adjusts MVRV for volatility: the question is not just how far above cost the market is, but how unusual that distance is.

Go deeper: MVRV Z-Score chart · MVRV Z-Score explained

N–O

NodeWitness Cycle Score

Our cycle indicator: ten on-chain and market inputs combined into one number between −100 and +100. Which inputs go in, and where each comes from, is public; the weights are not.

Go deeper: live cycle phase · how the Score works · where it has failed

NUPL

The network's total unrealized profit or loss as a fraction of market cap. At 0.5, half the network's value is paper profit; below zero, the network as a whole is underwater. It carries the same information as MVRV on a different scale.

Go deeper: realized price chart, with NUPL · what NUPL measures

Overfitting

Tuning a model until it explains the past beautifully and, for exactly that reason, falls apart on new data. It is the standing risk of any indicator whose thresholds were picked by looking at cycles that already happened.

Go deeper: the multiple-testing lottery · where the Score has failed

P

Pi Cycle Top

A price-only top indicator that fires when the 111-day moving average crosses above twice the 350-day moving average. It has lined up with several cycle tops, but with so few cases it is a reference point, not a law.

Go deeper: Pi Cycle Top chart · the Pi Cycle Top indicator

Public key

The piece of data that lets anyone check a signature without knowing the private key. Some address types put it on-chain from day one, others only when the coins are spent, which is why "exposed keys" come up whenever quantum risk is discussed.

Go deeper: how much BTC has an exposed key · the quantum threat and BIP-360

Puell Multiple

The dollar value of one day's newly issued bitcoin divided by its 365-day average. It shows whether miners are earning a lot or a little compared with normal; at cycle bottoms it has tended to sink well below 1.

Go deeper: Puell Multiple chart · Puell Multiple and cycle bottoms

R

Realized cap

Like market cap, but each coin is valued at the price it last moved at instead of today's. It is a much closer proxy for what people actually paid, and the base for realized price and MVRV.

Go deeper: realized price chart · realized price explained

Realized price

Realized cap divided by the number of coins: the average price at which every bitcoin last moved, a rough cost basis for the whole network. When the market trades below it, the average holder is at a loss.

Go deeper: realized price chart · realized price explained

Reserve Risk

Price divided by a running measure of holder conviction that grows every day coins stay unsold. Low when conviction is high and price is modest; high when price has run up and long-time holders start letting go.

RHODL Ratio

Compares the weight of very young coins (under a week old) with coins aged one to two years, both valued at realized price. It spikes when new money dominates the market, which is typical of tops.

S

sat/vB

Satoshis per virtual byte, the unit transaction fees are quoted in. A 140 vB transaction at 10 sat/vB pays 1,400 sats.

Go deeper: Bitcoin fees today

Satoshi

The smallest unit of bitcoin: one hundred-millionth, or 0.00000001 BTC. There are 100 million sats in one bitcoin.

Go deeper: sats to USD converter

Security budget

What the network pays miners to secure it: the block subsidy plus fees. With the subsidy halving every four years or so, fees will have to carry a growing share over time.

Go deeper: the Puell Multiple and miner revenue

Short-term holder (STH)

Coins that have moved within roughly the last 155 days. This is the newest money and the quickest to react; its realized price is the average cost of recent buyers.

Go deeper: STH and LTH realized price

SOPR

Takes the coins spent on a given day and divides the price they moved at by the price they were last moved at before. Above 1, coins are being spent at a profit; below 1, at a loss.

Go deeper: SOPR chart · SOPR explained

Standard deviation

How far, on average, the values in a series sit from their own mean. It tells you whether a reading is ordinary or extreme for that series, and it is what turns a raw gap into a Z-Score.

Go deeper: MVRV Z-Score explained

Supply cluster

A price range where a lot of bitcoin last changed hands. It works as the market's memory: when price returns to that range, many holders flip between profit and loss, and it tends to show.

Go deeper: URPD chart

Supply in profit and loss

The share of existing bitcoin that last moved below the current price (in profit) or above it (in loss). At market bottoms, a large slice of supply slips into loss.

Go deeper: supply in profit chart · LTH supply in loss

U–Z

Unrealized profit or loss

Gains or losses that exist on paper because nothing has been sold yet. Buy at 30,000, watch price hit 50,000, and you hold an unrealized gain until you sell.

Go deeper: NUPL, the network's unrealized profit

URPD

Short for UTXO Realized Price Distribution: a histogram of all bitcoin by the price at which each coin last moved. It maps where supply is concentrated, and so where large groups of holders would flip from profit to loss.

Go deeper: URPD chart

UTXO

Unspent transaction output: the way Bitcoin records each "coin." There are no account balances, just chunks of bitcoin with a history, spent whole, with change returned as a new chunk.

Go deeper: counting bitcoin in the UTXO set

UTXO set

Every unspent output at a given moment: the complete ledger of who can spend what. Nearly every on-chain metric on this page comes from walking through it.

Go deeper: HODL waves built from the UTXO set

UTXO set snapshot

A frozen copy of the UTXO set as of one specific block. Comparing snapshots week by week is what lets you compute coin ages, cost bases and distributions without relying on anyone else's numbers.

Go deeper: HODL waves built from our own node

Virtual byte (vB)

The unit used to size a transaction for fee purposes. Since SegWit, signature data counts for less than the rest, and virtual bytes fold everything into a single number.

Go deeper: Bitcoin fees today

Volatility

How much, and how fast, price swings. Being volatile doesn't make an asset better or worse, but it does mean its indicators have to be read against their own history rather than fixed thresholds.

Z-Score

How far a value sits from its reference, measured in standard deviations. A Z-Score of 3 means the reading is three standard deviations away, a distance most series reach only rarely.

Go deeper: MVRV Z-Score chart

Last updated: October 18, 2026