Coin Days Destroyed
An on-chain metric weighting each transaction by how long the coins being moved had previously sat dormant, used to gauge whether long-held supply is becoming active again.
Coin days destroyed is an on-chain metric calculated by multiplying the amount of a cryptocurrency moved in a transaction by the number of days those specific coins had sat dormant, unmoved, since their last transaction — a transaction moving a large amount of long-dormant coins "destroys" many more coin-days than one moving the same amount of coins that had only just been received. Summing this across all transactions over a period produces a measure that's weighted toward capturing movement of older, longer-held supply rather than ordinary, frequent trading activity.
The metric is used as an early precursor and conceptual building block behind more detailed tools like a HODL wave (see Kaavon's "HODL Wave" glossary definition), with spikes in coin days destroyed often interpreted as a signal that long-term holders are becoming active again, either taking profits or repositioning, rather than ordinary short-term trading noise. As with other historically pattern-based on-chain indicators, a spike in coin days destroyed describes observed holder behavior rather than guaranteeing any specific future price outcome.
Examples
- A sudden spike in coin days destroyed suggests that unusually old, long-dormant supply has started moving again, which analysts often interpret as long-term holders becoming active.
- A transaction moving coins that had sat dormant for years destroys far more coin-days than an equivalent transaction moving coins received only days earlier.