Skip to main content

Coin Days Destroyed

Sum of coin age × amount for all spent UTXOs per day — a fundamental measure of on-chain economic activity

PropertyValue
CategoryCoin Days
Unitcoin-days
Resolution1d
AssetsBTC
TierBasic
API EndpointGET /v1/coindays
Fieldcoindays_destroyed

Overview​

Coin Days Destroyed (CDD) is one of the most fundamental on-chain activity metrics. For every UTXO spent on a given day, CDD sums the product of the amount (in BTC) and the age (in calendar days) of that UTXO. The result quantifies not just how much Bitcoin moved, but how economically significant that movement was — older, larger UTXOs produce dramatically higher CDD values.

A single 100 BTC UTXO that sat dormant for 5 years and is then spent destroys 182,500 coin-days in one event, while 100 one-day-old 1 BTC UTXOs being spent destroys only 100 coin-days. CDD thus distinguishes meaningful capital reallocation from routine daily transaction noise.

The concept was first proposed by ByteCoin on the Bitcointalk forum in 2011 as a way to weight transaction volume by the age of coins involved.

Formula​

CDDt=∑i∈spent∣Δi∣×agei\text{CDD}_t = \sum_{i \in \text{spent}} |\Delta_i| \times \text{age}_i

Where:

  • ∣Δi∣|\Delta_i| is the BTC amount of the spent UTXO
  • agei=t−tcreated,i\text{age}_i = t - t_{\text{created},i} is the age in calendar days since the UTXO was created
  • The sum is over all UTXOs whose amount decreased (spent) on day tt

Note on Coin Days Created (CDC): Each bitcoin in existence creates exactly 1 coin-day per calendar day. Thus Coin Days Created = Circulating Supply. Unlike Glassnode's "Coinblocks Created" (which uses block-level timing and is therefore volatile due to block interval variance), our calendar-day approach produces a smooth, monotonically increasing CDC equal to circulating supply.

Interpretation​

  • CDD spikes indicate that old, dormant coins are being moved — often a sign of long-term holders taking profit, exchanges consolidating wallets, or whale redistribution
  • Sustained low CDD suggests long-term holders are accumulating and HODLing — coins are aging without being spent
  • CDD during price rallies helps distinguish retail FOMO (low CDD, mostly new coins moving) from smart money distribution (high CDD, old coins being sold)
  • CDD during crashes can reveal capitulation events where even long-term holders are panic selling

Use Cases​

  • Whale activity detection: Large CDD spikes often correspond to major holder movements and can precede significant price action
  • Market cycle phase identification: Bull market tops typically see elevated CDD as long-term holders distribute; bear market accumulation phases show suppressed CDD
  • Transaction volume quality assessment: High volume + low CDD = mostly short-term speculation; high volume + high CDD = economically significant capital flows
  • Input to derived metrics: CDD is the foundation for Binary CDD, Supply-Adjusted CDD, Dormancy, Liveliness, and other second-order on-chain indicators

API Usage​

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.blocklens.co/v1/coindays?start_date=2024-01-01&end_date=2024-12-31&limit=365"
  • Net Coin Days — Coin Days Created minus Coin Days Destroyed — positive means the network is aging (accumulating), negative means old coins are moving
  • Coin Days Accumulated — Running total of all coin-days ever created minus all coin-days ever destroyed — the total stored economic energy in the network
  • Circulating Supply — Total BTC ever mined