Metrics library
- Realized cap: valuing coins at the price they last moved
- Realized price: the average price coins last moved at
- MVRV ratio: market value compared with realized value
- NVT ratio: network value compared with on-chain volume
- NUPL: how much paper profit or loss the network holds
- SOPR: are coins being spent at a profit or a loss?
- Percent supply in profit: how many coins are above water
- HODL waves: reading Bitcoin’s supply by coin age
- Coin Days Destroyed: measuring when old bitcoin starts to move
- Hash rate: how much work is securing Bitcoin
- Active addresses: counting who used the chain — roughly
- Puell Multiple: is miner income high or low compared with the past year?
- Exchange netflow: coins in minus coins out
- Stablecoin supply ratio (SSR): Bitcoin’s size against the stablecoin pile
- Funding rate: the price of staying long or short in perpetual futures
- Open interest: how much leveraged exposure is open right now
NVT ratio: network value compared with on-chain volume
NVT asks how much the market values a network for each dollar it moves on-chain in a day. It was pitched as crypto’s version of a price-to-earnings ratio — with the same kind of caveats, and a few new ones.
Photo: “Stacks shipping containers Port Barcelona” by Unknown, CC0 1.0, via Rawpixel (edited: cropped and resized).
The NVT ratio divides a network’s market cap by the USD value transferred on-chain in a day [1]. Its creator, Willy Woo, likened it to a stock’s price-to-earnings ratio [1]. High NVT means the market values the network richly relative to on-chain usage; low NVT means the opposite.
Key points
- 1NVT = market cap ÷ daily on-chain transfer volume (both in USD).
- 2Its inverse is velocity: the share of network value moved on-chain per day.
- 3NVT Signal smooths volume with a 90-day average to reduce noise.
- 4On-chain volume misses exchange and Lightning activity and includes self-transfers, so NVT is easy to misread.
What does the NVT ratio measure?#
NVT stands for network value to transactions. The network value is the coin’s market capitalization. The transactions part is the USD value moved on the blockchain in a day. Glassnode presents the two sides as Bitcoin’s two roles: market cap reflects its value as a store of value, transfer volume reflects its use as a settlement network [1].
The idea is borrowed from stock analysis. Coin Metrics describes NVT as a rough price-to-earnings proxy, on the logic that value moved over a network represents the utility users get from it [2]. If the price rises much faster than the network’s on-chain use, NVT climbs; if usage grows faster than price, NVT falls.
How is NVT calculated?#
NVT = Market cap (USD) ÷ Daily on-chain transfer volume (USD)Glassnode divides market cap by daily transfer volume, both in USD [1]. Velocity is the same ratio flipped: transfer volume ÷ market cap [3].
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $500 billion |
| Daily transfer volume $10 billion → $500bn ÷ $10bn | NVT 50 |
| Velocity: $10bn ÷ $500bn | 0.02 (2% of network value moved that day) |
| Volume rises to $25 billion | NVT 20 |
| Volume falls to $5 billion | NVT 100 |
| Volume stays $10bn, but half is people moving coins between their own wallets | NVT 100 on the remaining $5bn |
The last line is the trap. The headline NVT is 50, but if half the volume is not economic activity, the “true” ratio is twice as high. Which volume you divide by matters as much as the formula.
What is NVT Signal, and why smooth the volume?#
Daily volume jumps around, so daily NVT is noisy. NVT Signal, proposed by Dmitry Kalichkin in February 2018, keeps market cap on top but divides by the 90-day moving average of daily transfer volume [4]. His reasoning, as Glassnode summarises it, is that volume often spikes after sharp price moves; averaging over 90 days strips out much of that speculation-driven noise [4]. Coin Metrics publishes a similar 90-day version based on its adjusted transfer value [2].
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| Raw NVT on day 90: $500bn ÷ $40bn | 12.5 |
| 90-day average volume: (89 × $10bn + $40bn) ÷ 90 | ≈ $10.33 billion |
| NVT Signal on day 90: $500bn ÷ $10.33bn | ≈ 48.4 |
| NVT on an ordinary day: $500bn ÷ $10bn | 50 |
One unusual day cuts raw NVT by three-quarters but barely moves NVT Signal.
What each side of NVT is meant to capture
How do analysts read NVT?#
| What you see | Glassnode’s reading | Caveat |
|---|---|---|
| High or rising NVT | Value is outpacing on-chain use; historically seen around tops | Usage may simply have moved off-chain |
| Low or falling NVT | On-chain use is outpacing value; historically seen near bottoms | Volume can be inflated by internal transfers |
| Flat NVT | Value and use growing at a similar pace | Says nothing about direction of price |
Glassnode stresses that NVT values from different eras are not directly comparable: as payment habits, technology such as the Lightning Network and narratives change, a 2013 reading and a 2021 reading mean different things [1]. It advises comparing periods of similar market maturity and giving the trend more weight than the absolute level [1]. Notice that neither Glassnode nor Coin Metrics publishes a universal “overvalued above X” number.
Why is NVT easy to misread?#
- Volume is not all economic. Most Bitcoin transactions create a change output back to the sender [5]. Coin Metrics filters some of this noise in its adjusted volume — for example, outputs spent within an hour are not counted [6] — but not every provider does.
- A lot of activity never touches the chain. Trades inside exchanges are invisible on-chain, and the Lightning Network was designed so that value can move off-blockchain [7]. Growth there can push NVT up without any drop in real use.
- Chains are not comparable. Coin Metrics warns that structural differences in how blockchains are used make NVT values across assets not directly comparable [2].
- The floor has drifted. Glassnode notes an upward drift in Bitcoin’s NVT since early 2018 and lists possible causes, including more off-chain exchange flows, more coins held by long-term holders and layer-2 activity [4].
NVT in one box
What mistakes do beginners make here?#
- Treating raw volume as economic activity
Change outputs, self-transfers and exchange housekeeping inflate volume. Check whether your chart uses adjusted volume.
- Comparing NVT between different coins
Each chain is used differently, so one coin’s NVT of 30 and another’s NVT of 30 do not mean the same thing.
- Comparing today with 2013
Usage moved partly off-chain over the years. Compare similar market phases and focus on the trend.
- Reading one day’s value
Daily NVT swings with daily volume. Use a smoothed version such as NVT Signal before drawing conclusions.
Frequently asked questions#
Is NVT really like a P/E ratio?
Only loosely. Willy Woo framed it that way [1], but transfer volume is not profit. It is a measure of usage, and a noisy one.
What is the difference between NVT and NVT Signal?
NVT divides by one day’s volume. NVT Signal divides by the 90-day average volume, which makes it smoother and less sensitive to single busy days [4].
Does Lightning make NVT useless?
Not useless, but harder to read. Payments that settle off-chain do not show up in on-chain volume [7], so NVT can drift upwards even if overall use grows.
What is a “good” NVT?
There is no universal number. Glassnode advises looking at the trend and at periods of similar market maturity rather than at absolute levels [1].
The bottom line#
NVT compares what the market pays for a network with how much value that network moves on-chain. It is one of the oldest on-chain ratios and easy to compute, which is why it is everywhere.
Its weakness is the denominator: on-chain volume both misses real activity and includes non-economic transfers. Pair it with active addresses, read the limits of on-chain data, and compare NVT only with its own history.
Sources#
Grade A = primary source (regulator, protocol specification, client code, original author). Grade B = expert secondary source used for explanation only.
- BGlassnode Docs. NVT Ratio, 2026.
- BCoin Metrics Data Knowledge Base. Valuation (network data definitions), 2026.
- BGlassnode Docs. Velocity, 2026.
- BGlassnode Docs. NVT Signal, 2026.
- ABitcoin Developer Documentation (developer.bitcoin.org). Transactions (developer guide), 2026.
- BCoin Metrics Data Knowledge Base. Transfer Value (network data definitions), 2026.
- AJoseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja. The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments, 2016.
- AEuropean Supervisory Authorities (EBA, ESMA, EIOPA). EU financial regulators warn consumers on the risks of crypto-assets, 2022.