MethodologyStablecoins · 12 min
What Counts as Real Stablecoin Volume?
Volume is a derived metric, not a column. This note states the filters we will use and the ones we will not.
Context
Dashboards often sum Transfer amounts and call the result volume. That number includes mint, burn, router hops, MEV backruns and self-transfers.
Method
We classify each transfer, then define volume as the sum of payments.transfers where noise = false. Router hops that net to a single user payment collapse to one row.
Findings
Self-transfers and zero-amount events are common enough on Arc to move a daily chart. They are cheap to filter at the canonical layer and expensive to explain later.
Implications for the data model
Volume is computed in SQL over classified rows, not stored. The classification itself is versioned so a definition change can be replayed.