Resources
Live Bitcoin indicators, essential reading and a glossary for professional digital-asset investors.
The Bitcoin white paper
Nine pages that introduced a way to send value online without a bank in the middle. It solved the double-spending problem with a public, time-stamped chain of blocks secured by proof-of-work, and it remains the foundation of every Bitcoin trade today.
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”Message embedded by Satoshi Nakamoto in Bitcoin’s first block, 3 January 2009Read the white paper (PDF)
Bitcoin indicators
Calculated in-house by SBZ from public blockchain data. Updated hourly.
Network
Computing power securing Bitcoin. Higher means a stronger network. 7-day average; the 12-month change compares 30-day averages.
Resets every 2,016 blocks so a block arrives about every 10 minutes.
Below 10 minutes means miners are adding power faster than difficulty adjusts.
What it costs to get a transaction into the next blocks.
How much the network is being used.
New bitcoin plus fees paid to miners over the last 144 blocks.
Transactions waiting to be confirmed. When it is clear, on-chain settlement is fast and cheap.
When the 30-day hash rate falls below the 60-day, miners are under stress. The cross back above has often marked good buying zones.
Supply
Each halving cuts new supply in half. The last bitcoin will be mined around 2140.
New bitcoin created each day by mining. It halves at every halving.
Coins in existence divided by new coins per year, since 2012 (log scale). Each step up is a halving. A measure of scarcity, not a price forecast.
| Halving | Date | Block | Reward after | BTC price that day |
|---|
Price
Bitcoin price multiplied by coins in circulation.
The share of all daily closes since July 2015 that were below today’s price: how much of Bitcoin’s trading history is “in profit” at this level.
Price ÷ 200-day average. Dashed lines mark 1 (the average) and 0.8, below which Bitcoin has historically been cheap; above 2.4 it has been overheated.
How far Bitcoin sits below its running peak, since 2017.
Price after each halving, as a multiple of the price on halving day.
Cycle and trend
The 111-day average against twice the 350-day average. When they cross (dashed line), it has flagged past cycle peaks within days.
Long-term trend and support levels since 2019 (log scale). The 200-week average has acted as a floor in past cycles.
Momentum on monthly closes. Above 90 (top line) has marked overheated markets; below 50 (bottom line), accumulation phases.
Value of new coins mined each day against its one-year average. Below 0.5 has marked cycle lows; above 4, cycle highs.
A golden cross (50-day above 200-day) signals an uptrend; a death cross, a downtrend. The most watched trend signal among traders.
How much the price has been moving. Quiet periods have often come before larger moves.
Tool
At the latest price. Type in any box.
Method: blockchain figures from public Bitcoin network data; prices are Coinbase BTC-USD daily closes (UTC). Figures from different providers can differ slightly. For information only, not investment advice.
Reading list
Essential documents chosen by the SBZ desk. Links open the original source.
Bitcoin
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash SystemSatoshi Nakamoto · 2008
The white paper that started it all.
- Bitcoin’s Academic PedigreeArvind Narayanan, Jeremy Clark · 2017
The decades of research Bitcoin was built on.
- The Bullish Case for BitcoinVijay Boyapati · 2018
Bitcoin as a store of value, from first principles.
- Mastering BitcoinAndreas M. Antonopoulos, David A. Harding · open edition
The standard technical reference, free to read.
Ethereum
- Ethereum White PaperVitalik Buterin · 2014
Smart contracts and a programmable blockchain.
- Ethereum Yellow PaperGavin Wood · 2014, updated
The formal specification of the Ethereum machine.
Stablecoins
- Tether transparencyTether · updated regularly
Reserves backing USDT, from the issuer.
- Circle transparencyCircle · updated regularly
Reserves backing USDC, from the issuer.
Regulation and market structure
- MiCA: Regulation (EU) 2023/1114European Union · 2023
Europe’s rulebook for crypto-assets and stablecoins.
- Guidance on virtual assetsFATF · 2021
The global standard behind the travel rule.
- GENIUS ActUnited States · 2025
The US framework for payment stablecoins.
External links open the original source in a new tab. SBZ is not responsible for third-party content.
Watch and listen
The latest from trusted crypto media, selected and filtered by the SBZ desk. Links open on YouTube or Spotify.
Glossary A–Z
Plain-English definitions of the terms used by traders and in our Weekly Brief.
A
- Address
- A public identifier, derived from a wallet’s keys, that can receive bitcoin or other digital assets. Safe to share; it cannot be used to spend funds.
- Airdrop
- Tokens distributed free to wallet holders, usually to launch or promote a project.
- All-time high (ATH)
- The highest price an asset has ever traded at.
- Altcoin
- Any digital asset other than Bitcoin.
- AML (anti-money laundering)
- The rules and checks a firm applies to prevent its services being used to launder criminal proceeds.
- Ask
- The lowest price a seller is willing to accept. See also Bid.
B
- Bear market
- A prolonged period of falling prices.
- Bid
- The highest price a buyer is willing to pay. The gap between bid and ask is the spread.
- Block
- A batch of confirmed transactions added to the blockchain. On Bitcoin, a new block arrives about every 10 minutes.
- Block height
- The number of blocks in the chain before a given block. It is the blockchain’s running clock.
- Block reward
- New bitcoin paid to the miner of each block, plus the transaction fees it contains. Today 3.125 BTC per block before fees.
- Block trade
- A large order agreed privately at one price and settled in a single transaction, away from public order books.
- Blockchain
- A shared, append-only record of transactions, grouped into blocks and secured by cryptography.
- Bull market
- A prolonged period of rising prices.
C
- Cold storage
- Keeping private keys on devices that are never connected to the internet, to protect them from hacking.
- Confirmation
- Each new block added on top of a transaction’s block. More confirmations mean a transaction is harder to reverse.
- Counterparty
- The other side of a trade: the firm or person you buy from or sell to.
- Custody
- Holding digital assets, or the keys to them, on behalf of someone else.
D
- DeFi (decentralised finance)
- Financial services, such as lending or trading, run by smart contracts on a blockchain rather than by intermediaries.
- Difficulty
- How hard it is to mine a Bitcoin block. It adjusts every 2,016 blocks so that blocks keep arriving about every 10 minutes.
- Double spend
- Spending the same coins twice. Bitcoin’s proof-of-work and confirmations are designed to prevent it.
- Drawdown
- The fall from a previous peak to a later low, usually shown as a percentage.
E
- ETF (exchange-traded fund)
- A fund listed on a stock exchange. Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs hold the underlying asset.
F
- Fiat currency
- Government-issued money, such as the US dollar or the euro.
- Fork
- A change to a blockchain’s rules. A hard fork can split the chain into two.
G
- Gas
- The fee paid to process a transaction or smart contract on Ethereum.
- Genesis block
- The first block of a blockchain. Bitcoin’s was mined on 3 January 2009.
H
- Halving
- The event, every 210,000 blocks (about four years), when the bitcoin reward for each new block is cut in half.
- Hash rate
- The total computing power miners devote to securing the Bitcoin network.
- Hot wallet
- A wallet connected to the internet: convenient for frequent use, but more exposed than cold storage.
K
- KYC (know your customer)
- The identity and source-of-funds checks a desk completes before trading with a client.
L
- Layer 2
- A network built on top of a blockchain to make transactions faster or cheaper, such as Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
- Lightning Network
- A layer-2 payment network for fast, low-cost Bitcoin payments.
- Liquidity
- How easily an asset can be bought or sold in size without moving its price.
M
- Market capitalisation
- Price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation.
- Mayer Multiple
- Bitcoin’s price divided by its 200-day average. Readings below 0.8 have historically marked cheap periods; above 2.4, overheated ones.
- Mempool
- The waiting room of transactions broadcast to the network but not yet included in a block.
- MiCA
- The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which sets rules for crypto-asset issuers and service providers.
- Mining
- Using computing power to add new blocks to the blockchain, in return for the block reward.
- Multisig
- A wallet that needs more than one key to approve a transaction, for example two of three.
N
- Node
- A computer that keeps a copy of the blockchain and checks that new transactions follow the rules.
O
- On-chain
- Recorded directly on the blockchain, as opposed to off-chain on an exchange’s or desk’s own books.
- Order book
- The list of buy and sell orders on an exchange, by price. Large orders can move through several price levels.
- OTC (over the counter)
- Trading directly with a counterparty at an agreed price, rather than on a public exchange.
P
- Private key
- The secret that proves ownership of digital assets and authorises spending them. Never share it.
- Proof of reserves
- An audit or attestation showing that a firm holds the assets it says it holds.
- Proof of stake
- A way of securing a blockchain where validators lock up coins as collateral, used by Ethereum.
- Proof of work
- A way of securing a blockchain where miners spend computing power to add blocks, used by Bitcoin.
Q
- Quote
- A firm price offered by a desk for a specific size, valid for a short time.
R
- RFQ (request for quote)
- Asking a desk for a firm price on a specific size before deciding to trade.
S
- Satoshi (sat)
- The smallest unit of bitcoin: one hundred-millionth of a BTC.
- Satoshi Nakamoto
- The pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin and author of its white paper.
- Seed phrase
- A list of 12 or 24 words that can restore a wallet. Anyone who has it controls the funds.
- Self-custody
- Holding your own private keys rather than leaving assets with a third party.
- Settlement
- The final exchange of assets and payment that completes a trade.
- Slippage
- The difference between the expected price and the price actually paid, common when large orders move a public order book.
- Smart contract
- Code on a blockchain that runs automatically when its conditions are met.
- Spread
- The gap between the buying and selling price quoted for an asset.
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar, backed by reserves such as cash and Treasury bills.
- Stock-to-flow
- Coins in existence divided by new coins created per year. A measure of scarcity; higher means scarcer.
- SWIFT
- The global messaging network banks use to send international payments.
T
- Tokenisation
- Representing a real-world asset, such as a bond or gold, as a token on a blockchain.
- Travel rule
- The FATF standard requiring originator and beneficiary details to travel with crypto transfers between regulated firms.
U
- UTXO (unspent transaction output)
- A ‘coin’ in Bitcoin’s accounting: an amount received at an address and not yet spent.
V
- Volatility
- How much an asset’s price moves. Often shown as an annualised percentage.
W
- Wallet
- Software or hardware that stores private keys and lets you send and receive digital assets.
- Whale
- A holder or trader of a very large amount of a digital asset.
- White paper
- A document setting out a project’s design. Bitcoin’s, published in 2008, is nine pages long.
The SBZ Weekly Brief
The week in digital assets, every Monday. Free by email and on Telegram.