Stacks miners batch users' transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees). Miners submit transactions to Bitcoin, paying a share of the transaction fees to Bitcoin miners.

Stacks is an smart contract platform for creating decentralized applications on Bitcoin (a blockchain). Stacks was founded by Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea, and launched in 2021.

STX tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Stacks' investors include IOSG Ventures, The Spartan Group, Hashkey Exchange, etc.

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Stacks

# Stacks Median transaction fee Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Stacks transaction fee median metric measures the middle value (50th percentile) of all transaction fees paid on the Stacks network each day, expressed in USD. This metric provides insight into the typical cost users pay to have their transactions processed, smoothing out extreme values that could skew an average calculation. Stacks uses a byte-based fee model with fees denominated in micro-STX. System transactions (coinbase and tenure_change) are excluded. The calculation aggregates all user transaction fees daily, finds the statistical median, and converts to USD using daily STX price data.

## 2. Data sources

- **Stacks blockchain transaction data**: Transaction records containing block timestamps, transaction identifiers, transaction types, and fee amounts in micro-STX
- **CoinGecko price data**: Daily STX/USD price data using the CoinGecko identifier `blockstack`

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Stacks transaction fee extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract and prepare raw Stacks transaction fee data for median calculation
- **Logic**: Retrieve all Stacks transactions excluding system transactions (coinbase and tenure_change types). Extract block timestamps and fee amounts. Handle missing or null fee values by converting them to zero. The `fee` field represents the amount in micro-STX paid by the transaction sender, converted to STX by dividing by 10^6.
- **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 user 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: STX price data compilation
- **Purpose**: Provide STX price coverage for USD conversion
- **Logic**: STX price data is sourced from CoinGecko using the `blockstack` identifier and aggregated to daily level. Daily prices provide consistent exchange rates for converting median STX fees to USD values.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` for daily price alignment, `price` as the STX/USD exchange rate, `timestamp_grain` set to day

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Join the daily median transaction fees with the corresponding daily STX prices using exact date matching
- **Currency conversion**: Multiply the median transaction fee (in STX) by the STX price (in USD) to convert from Stacks' 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 STX multiplied by the daily STX price, with gap filling using zeros for any missing data points

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

StacksSTX

Median transaction fee

Median transaction fee

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