Definition. Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) Quantiles is the distribution of realized prices for unspent digital assets, divided into 100 quantiles (percentiles) for each day. It provides a granular view of where total supply was acquired, supports identification of the share of supply acquired below the current market price (and therefore potentially at a loss), and surfaces price levels with denser supply concentration as denser clustering of the quantile lines over a given time range.

Technical. All CBD metrics use an address-based approach, analyzing holdings at the individual wallet-address level for consistency across digital assets and comparability across blockchain architectures. This contrasts with a UTXO-based approach (used in metrics like URPD), which categorizes supply based on unspent transaction outputs and is typically used for chains like Bitcoin. Metrics for UTXO-based assets may therefore show slight differences when compared across these distinct computational methods.

This is the Point-in-Time (PiT) variant of Cost Basis Distribution Quantiles. PiT metrics are strictly append-only and their history is immutable. The historic data does not necessarily reflect the best current knowledge, but the information at the time when a data point was first computed. PiT metrics are ideal candidates for applications in model backtesting and related quantitative purposes. Read our article on PiT metrics for more information.