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Blockchains (L2)

Unichain

# Unichain Block time Methodology

## 1. Overview

Block time measures the average time interval between consecutive blocks on the Unichain L2 blockchain, expressed in milliseconds. This metric provides insight into blockchain performance and network efficiency by tracking how consistently blocks are produced over time. The calculation uses sequential block timestamps to compute time differences and aggregates them to daily averages.

## 2. Data sources

- **Unichain blockchain data**: Raw block data from the Unichain L2 network containing block timestamps and sequential block numbers
- **Block metadata**: Fundamental blockchain block information including production timestamps and block ordering

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block timestamp extraction
- **Purpose**: Extracts clean block timestamp and number data from raw Unichain blockchain records
- **Logic**: Retrieves `block_timestamp` and `block_number` fields from Unichain block data, applying safe casting to ensure proper data types (timestamp and integer respectively). Excludes the genesis block (block number 0) which is timestamped at Unix epoch and would skew calculations. For incremental processing, filters to recent blocks based on partition boundaries plus a lookback period
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (when the block was produced), `block_number` (sequential block identifier)

### Component B: Timestamp pairing
- **Purpose**: Creates pairs of consecutive block timestamps to enable time difference calculations
- **Logic**: Uses a LAG window function ordered by `block_number` to retrieve the timestamp of the previous block for each current block. This creates paired records where each block has both its own timestamp and the timestamp of the preceding block. Records without a previous timestamp (the first block in the dataset) are excluded from further processing
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (current block time), `previous_timestamp` (preceding block time), `block_number` (for ordering)

### Component C: Block time calculation
- **Purpose**: Computes the actual time interval between consecutive blocks
- **Logic**: Calculates the time difference between `block_timestamp` and `previous_timestamp` using millisecond precision. Truncates each block timestamp to daily boundaries to prepare for daily aggregation. Adds standard metadata including chain identifier (`unichain`), market sector (`blockchains_l2`), and business segment (`blockchain`)
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (daily boundary), `block_time` (millisecond interval), metadata fields

### Component D: Daily aggregation
- **Purpose**: Aggregates individual block times into daily average values
- **Logic**: Groups all block time measurements by day and calculates the average `block_time` for each date. This smooths out short-term variations and provides a daily performance metric. Maintains all metadata fields through the grouping operation
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (daily boundary), average `block_time` (daily mean in milliseconds)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The daily averages flow through the `finalize_metric_block_time` macro which applies standard formatting and validation rules for block time metrics
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable for time-based metrics
- **Time aggregation**: Data is aggregated at daily boundaries using timestamp truncation, with averages calculated across all blocks produced within each day
- **Final calculation**: The final metric represents the average time in milliseconds between consecutive blocks for each day, providing a daily performance indicator for the Unichain network

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

avg(block_timestamp - previous_block_timestamp)

UnichainUNI

Block time

Block time

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