Frequently asked questions

How the charts are built, where the numbers come from, and what you can do with them. For the story behind the project and who runs it, see About.

What is Explore21 Charts?

Explore21 Charts is a free set of time-series Bitcoin charts covering price and valuation, network health, and holder behaviour, with no account and no paywall. It is the analytical half of Explore21; the block, address, and transaction explorer lives at explore21.com.

Where does the data come from?

Every metric is computed from a Bitcoin Core node that the project runs itself. Nothing is bought from a data vendor or proxied through a third-party API, and the price history is our own daily record kept since 2011. Because the charts and the Explore21 newsletter read from that one source, a figure in the newsletter and the same figure on a chart always agree.

How often are the charts updated?

On-chain metrics are recomputed as new blocks arrive, and each page refreshes on a ten-minute cycle. Calculations deliberately stay six blocks behind the chain tip. That is the depth at which a block is safe from being reorganised out of the chain, so a published number never has to be revised later.

Why does the price history start in 2011?

Bitcoin had no traded market price before 18 August 2011. Coins created earlier have no knowable cost basis, so they are excluded from every dollar-denominated metric such as Realized Cap, Realized Price and MVRV; they are still counted in supply-based metrics such as HODL Waves. Assigning those coins an invented price would distort the whole series, not just its early years.

What does the log or linear scale toggle do?

On single-axis charts the vertical axis switches between linear and logarithmic. Linear spacing shows absolute dollar moves, so a $10,000 change is the same height anywhere on the axis. Logarithmic spacing shows percentage moves: a rise from $1 to $10 and one from $10,000 to $100,000 are both tenfold and draw the same height, which is what makes every market cycle visible on one screen.

Which timeframes can I view?

One month, three months, six months, one year, five years, and All. The summary statistics above each chart (average, minimum and maximum) recalculate for whichever window is selected.

How are the valuation metrics calculated?

They all derive from one structure: a running record, keyed by the day each coin was created, of how much of the supply from that day is still unspent and what the market price was at the time. Realized Cap, Realized Price, the MVRV Ratio, the MVRV Z-Score, Percent Supply in Profit and HODL Waves are each a calculation over that one record at a given day. The exact method is written out on every chart page.

Can I reuse the charts or the underlying data?

Yes. The data is published under the Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 licence. Reuse it anywhere, with attribution to Explore21.

Is any of this investment advice?

No. The charts describe the state of the Bitcoin network and what it has done historically. They do not predict price and are not trading signals, and nothing here is investment advice.

Who builds Explore21?

Dimitar Zurnov, a software engineer from Plovdiv, who runs the Bitcoin node and the ingestion pipeline behind every figure on the site. There is more on the About page.

I found an error, or I would like a chart added.

Reach out on X at @zurnoff, or through the contact options on explore21.com. Corrections and chart requests are both welcome.