NVT Ratio
Network value divided by on-chain transaction volume — crypto's rough analog of a price-to-earnings ratio.
NVT (Network Value to Transactions) divides a network’s market cap by the value it settles on-chain, often smoothed over time. The analogy is to a stock’s price-to-earnings ratio: it asks whether the network’s valuation is justified by the economic activity flowing through it.
A high NVT suggests price has outrun on-chain usage (potentially overvalued); a low NVT suggests the opposite. Like P/E, it’s more useful for spotting extremes and trends than for precise valuation, and it’s distorted by off-chain activity, Layer 2s and exchange internal transfers. It was an early attempt to bring fundamental valuation discipline to crypto, and remains a conceptual staple even as its precision is debated.