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 Active users (daily) Methodology

## 1. Overview

Bitcoin daily active users (DAU) measures the number of unique addresses that initiated Bitcoin transactions on each day. The metric identifies "transaction senders" by resolving Bitcoin's UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model, where transaction inputs reference previous outputs, requiring a lookup mechanism to determine the actual sender addresses. This metric answers the business question: "How many unique users are actively sending Bitcoin transactions each day?"

## 2. Data sources

- **Bitcoin blockchain transaction records**: Raw Bitcoin transaction data containing transaction metadata, input arrays, and output arrays
- **Transaction input data**: Arrays of input references that point to previous transaction outputs, containing transaction hash and output index pairs
- **Transaction output data**: Arrays of transaction outputs containing recipient address information embedded in `scriptPubKey` structures
- **Blockchain timestamp data**: Block timestamps for temporal aggregation to daily boundaries

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Address resolution lookup table
- **Purpose**: Creates a mapping from previous transaction outputs to their recipient addresses, enabling input address resolution
- **Logic**: Processes all Bitcoin transactions and extracts outputs with their recipient addresses. Each output is indexed by its transaction hash and position within the transaction's output array. Addresses are extracted from the `scriptPubKey.address` field within each output. The resulting lookup table maps each previous output (identified by transaction hash and output index) to the address that originally received those Bitcoin
- **Key fields**: `transaction_hash`, `output_index`, `user_address`, and `block_timestamp` for temporal partitioning

### Component B: Historical user identification (pre-2019)
- **Purpose**: Identifies unique daily active users for Bitcoin transactions before 2019-01-01
- **Logic**: Processes Bitcoin transactions from the historical period and extracts all transaction inputs. Each input contains a reference to a previous transaction output via transaction hash and output index. These input references are joined with the address resolution lookup table to resolve the actual sender address. The process aggregates distinct resolved addresses per day, treating each unique address as one daily active user. Transactions where input addresses cannot be resolved (due to missing lookup data) are included but with null addresses
- **Key fields**: Daily `timestamp` boundaries and resolved `user_address` values

### Component C: Recent user identification (2019 onwards)
- **Purpose**: Identifies unique daily active users for Bitcoin transactions from 2019-01-01 onwards, using incremental processing
- **Logic**: Follows identical logic to the historical component but processes more recent data with incremental updates. Extracts transaction inputs, resolves sender addresses through the lookup table, and aggregates distinct addresses per day. Uses incremental processing strategies to handle ongoing data updates efficiently
- **Key fields**: Daily `timestamp` boundaries and resolved `user_address` values

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The historical and recent user datasets are combined using a union operation, creating a complete time series of daily active users across Bitcoin's entire history
- **Currency conversion**: No currency conversion required as this metric counts addresses rather than monetary values
- **Time aggregation**: Transaction timestamps are truncated to daily boundaries using day-level precision, ensuring consistent daily groupings
- **Final calculation**: The final DAU count represents the number of distinct user addresses that initiated Bitcoin transactions on each day, identified by resolving UTXO input references to their original recipient addresses

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

Unique revenue-generating users over a fixed 24-hour window.

BitcoinBTC

Active users (daily)

Active users (daily)

Competitive landscape