Miners process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Bitcoin is a distributed ledger for transfer and store of value (a blockchain). Bitcoin was founded by a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and launched in 2009.

BTC holders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue).

github

block explorer

Blockchains (L1)

Bitcoin

# Bitcoin Median transaction fee Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Bitcoin transaction fee median metric measures the middle value (50th percentile) of all transaction fees paid on the Bitcoin network each day, expressed in USD. This metric provides insight into the typical cost users pay to have their transactions processed by Bitcoin miners, smoothing out extreme values that could skew an average calculation. The calculation involves aggregating all Bitcoin transaction fees daily, finding the statistical median, and converting to USD using end-of-day Bitcoin price data.

## 2. Data sources

- **Bitcoin transaction records**: Complete Bitcoin blockchain transaction data including block timestamps, transaction identifiers, and fee amounts paid by users
- **Chainlink price feeds**: Real-time Bitcoin price data from Chainlink oracles providing BTC/USD exchange rates for periods after December 2019
- **CoinGecko daily market data**: Historical Bitcoin price data providing daily BTC/USD prices for periods before December 2019
- **External price feeds**: End-of-day Bitcoin price feeds combining both Chainlink and CoinGecko sources to ensure complete price coverage

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Bitcoin transaction fee extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract and prepare raw Bitcoin transaction fee data for median calculation
- **Logic**: Retrieve all Bitcoin transactions including their block timestamps and fee amounts. Handle missing or null fee values by converting them to zero to ensure complete data coverage. The `fee` field represents the amount paid by the transaction sender to Bitcoin miners for transaction processing.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for time-based grouping, `transaction_hash` for unique identification, `fee` for the fee amount paid

### Component B: Daily median fee calculation  
- **Purpose**: Calculate the statistical median of transaction fees for each day
- **Logic**: Group all Bitcoin transactions by day using timestamp truncation to daily boundaries. For each day, calculate the median fee using approximate quantiles at the 50th percentile. This approach handles large transaction volumes efficiently while providing an accurate middle value that represents typical transaction costs better than arithmetic averages.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` truncated to day boundaries, `transaction_fee_median` as the calculated 50th percentile value

### Component C: Bitcoin price data compilation
- **Purpose**: Provide complete Bitcoin price coverage for USD conversion
- **Logic**: Combine Bitcoin price data from two sources with date-based switching. Use Chainlink price feeds for periods after December 10, 2019, taking daily averages of real-time price data. Use CoinGecko daily market data for periods before December 10, 2019, using direct daily price values. This hybrid approach ensures accurate price coverage across Bitcoin's entire history.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` for daily price alignment, `price` as the BTC/USD exchange rate, `timestamp_grain` set to day

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Join the daily median transaction fees with the corresponding daily Bitcoin prices using exact date matching
- **Currency conversion**: Multiply the median transaction fee (in BTC) by the Bitcoin price (in USD) to convert from Bitcoin's native currency to USD values
- **Time aggregation**: All calculations use daily boundaries with timestamp truncation to ensure consistent time-based grouping
- **Final calculation**: The final metric value represents the median transaction fee in USD for each day, calculated as median fee in BTC multiplied by the daily Bitcoin price, with gap filling using zeros for any missing data points and chain availability filtering applied

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

BitcoinBTC

Median transaction fee

Median transaction fee

Competitive landscape