Unit 2 · Level 3 · On-chain valuation
Realized cap
Market cap values every coin at today's price, even coins untouched since 2011. Realized cap does something smarter: it values each coin at the price when it LAST moved on-chain. Sum it up and you get an approximation of the market's collective cost basis: what holders, in aggregate, roughly paid. Only a transparent blockchain makes this possible; you can't compute it for Apple shares.
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What you get asked
How is realized cap computed?
Last-move price is used as a proxy for purchase price. It's imperfect (transfers aren't always purchases), but at market scale it tracks aggregate cost basis well.
Say bitcoin trades at $60,000, and a coin last moved in 2016 at $600. How does each cap count that coin?
That gap is the point: market cap says what the coin is worth now, realized cap remembers what its holder paid. The spread between them is unrealized profit.
Match each concept to its description
Realized cap turns the blockchain's memory into a cost-basis estimate for the whole market. Every metric in this unit builds on it.
Realized cap moves much more ___ than market cap, because old coins only reprice when they actually move.
Market cap jumps with every tick; realized cap drifts like a glacier. That stability is what makes it a useful anchor to compare price against.
Why is realized cap called an 'honest' baseline compared to market cap?
One marginal trade can reprice the entire market cap; realized cap only updates when coins genuinely move. It measures stored cost, not mood. 🐜
The rest of this unit
The blockchain remembers what everyone paid. Turn that memory into valuation gauges.