# Reading on-chain data without pretending to be an analyst

You do not need a dashboard subscription. Three things anyone can check in ten minutes, and what they actually tell you.

- URL: https://pushpendra.info/articles/reading-on-chain-basics
- Author: Pushpendra Singh
- Language: English
- Topics: portfolio, risk, investing

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On-chain analysis has a reputation for being complicated, mostly because the people selling it
benefit from that reputation.

Most of what is useful to an ordinary buyer takes ten minutes and a free block explorer.

## One: who holds the supply

Every token has a holders list, and it is public.

Open the explorer for whichever chain the token lives on, find the token, and look at the top
holders. You are asking one question: how much of the supply sits in a handful of wallets?

If a small number of addresses hold most of it, the price is not really a market. It is a
decision those wallets make. They can exit and you cannot, because there is nobody on the
other side of that size except you.

Exchange wallets and locked contracts will appear in that list too, so it is not a pure signal.
But a token where ten wallets hold 80% is telling you something plainly.

## Two: when the unlocks happen

Most new tokens release supply on a schedule. Team, investors, treasury.

That schedule is usually published, and it is the closest thing to a known event in this
market. A large unlock means a known seller arriving on a known date, and the people holding
that supply have known about it far longer than you.

I am not saying avoid anything with unlocks, which would rule out almost everything. I am
saying know where they fall before you buy, not after the price moves and you are trying to
work out why.

## Three: is anyone actually using it

Look at transaction counts and active addresses over a few months.

A project with a rising price and flat usage is being bought, not used. Sometimes that is fine
for a while. It is just worth knowing which of the two you have.

Be careful with raw transaction counts on cheap chains, where activity is easy to manufacture.
Direction over months tells you more than any single number.

## What this does not tell you

It does not tell you where the price is going. Nothing does.

It tells you what you are stepping into. Concentrated supply, a large unlock next month, and no
users is a different proposition from spread supply, no near-term unlocks, and growing activity.
Both can rise. Only one of them has an explanation.

## Where this fits

This belongs with the other questions rather than replacing them. Who runs it, what it does,
what would prove me wrong, how much can I hold through a 70% fall.

On-chain data answers one of those well, which is what you are stepping into. It answers none
of the others, and a dashboard that implies otherwise is selling certainty rather than
information.

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Written by Pushpendra Singh, crypto educator and founder of SmartViewAI, Top Crypto Educator at
Consensus 2025. Not financial or tax advice. https://pushpendra.info