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Bucket Protocol

# Asset transfer volume methodology

## 1. Overview

Asset transfer volume is defined as the total value of assets transferred onchain. Since transaction fees are paid by users for each transfer, a correlation is typically observed between this metric and the customer demand that exists to use an asset for transacting purposes. Daily transfer volumes are aggregated across all supported blockchains, normalized by decimal precision, and converted into USD. To ensure an accurate representation of economic activity, transactions involving non-circulating treasury or premint addresses are subtracted where applicable.

## 2. Data sources

- **EVM chain events**: ERC-20 token transfers, covering EVM-compatible chains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Optimism, Tron, Starknet, zkSync Era, and others)
- **Solana instructions**: SPL token transfers, mints, and burns
- **Aptos events**: Token withdraw events
- **Near events**: Token transfer events
- **Polkadot Asset Hub events**: `Transferred` events from the `assets` pallet
- **Cardano UTXO transactions**: Token deposits, withdrawals, and mint/burn events
- **Stellar operations**: Classic token withdrawals and Soroban SEP-41 token transfers
- **Sui transactions**: Token withdrawals and `TreasuryCap` supply changes
- **Algorand transactions**: Asset transfer transactions
- **Injective events**: Token transfer, mint, and burn events
- **Stacks transactions**: Token transfer events
- **Asset metadata**: Token contract addresses and decimal precision
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds and fiat exchange rates

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Raw transfer volume extraction

- **Purpose**: Extract raw token transfer quantities from onchain events and transactions
- **Logic**: On EVM-compatible chains, token transfer quantities are extracted from ERC-20 `Transfer` events. On Solana, quantities are extracted from SPL token transfers, mints, and burns. On Aptos, Near, Algorand, Injective, and Stacks, transfer volumes are parsed from native token transfer and withdrawal events. On Polkadot Asset Hub, volumes are extracted from `Transferred` events emitted by the `assets` pallet. On Cardano, UTXO withdrawals and mint events are aggregated to capture all token movements. On Stellar, classic token withdrawals and Soroban SEP-41 transfer, mint, and burn events are parsed. On Sui, token withdrawals are combined with mint events derived from `TreasuryCap` supply changes.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (the day of the transfer) `token_address` (the contract or asset identifier) `amount` (the raw transfer quantity)

### Component B: Premint and preburn correction

- **Purpose**: Exclude non-circulating token movements to isolate genuine economic transfer volume
- **Logic**: For supported chains, raw transfer volumes are corrected by subtracting premints and preburns. Premints are defined as tokens minted directly into designated project treasury or premint addresses, while preburns are represented by tokens burned directly from these non-circulating addresses. On EVM-compatible chains, Solana, Injective, Stacks, and Stellar Soroban, these flows are identified by filtering transfers where the sender or recipient matches a known treasury address. On Algorand, transfers between asset configuration addresses and treasury addresses are subtracted. On Cardano, deposits to and withdrawals from treasury addresses during mint or burn transactions are netted out.
- **Key fields**: `amount` (the corrected transfer quantity) `token_address` (the contract or asset identifier) `timestamp` (the day of the transfer)

### Component C: Decimal normalization and zero-filling

- **Purpose**: Normalize token quantities to human-readable units and ensure continuous daily time series
- **Logic**: Raw token quantities are normalized by the decimal precision retrieved from the asset metadata. For days with no recorded transfer activity, the time series is filled with zero values to maintain a continuous daily record for each asset.
- **Key fields**: `amount` (the normalized transfer quantity) `decimals` (the decimal precision of the token)

### Component D: USD conversion and final aggregation

- **Purpose**: Convert normalized transfer volumes to USD and aggregate across all chains
- **Logic**: Normalized daily transfer volumes are multiplied by the end-of-day price feeds sourced from market data providers. For assets pegged to fiat currencies other than USD, daily exchange rates are applied using Chainlink FX price feeds to determine the USD-equivalent value. The final daily asset transfer volume is calculated by summing the USD-denominated transfer volumes across all active chains for each asset.
- **Key fields**: `price_usd` (the end-of-day market price of the asset in USD) `amount_usd` (the final transfer volume in USD)

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

Bucket Protocol

Asset transfer volume

Asset transfer volume

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