Project Atlas explored economic significance of cryptoassets and DeFi

Updated 4 October 2023

• BIS and its partners within the Eurosystem, De Nederlandsche Bank and the Deutsche Bundesbank created a data platform that could potentially shed light on the macroeconomic relevance of cryptoasset markets and decentralised finance (DeFi).
• Project Atlas combined on- and off-chain information, creating a layered approach to data vetting and tailored statistics for central banks.
• A first proof of concept was developed focusing on international flows of cryptoassets.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its partner central banks within the Eurosystem developed a proof of concept to explore the macroeconomic relevance of cryptoasset markets and DeFi.

Project Atlas, a collaborative effort by the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem Centre, De Nederlandsche Bank and the Deutsche Bundesbank, combined data gathered from crypto exchanges (called off-chain data) with granular data extracted from public blockchains (on-chain data). In this proof of concept phase, Atlas focused on improving data collection methodology and platform development.

While plenty of data on the industry are currently available, the data are spread over many protocols, market actors and jurisdictions, and reporting is often not regulated or standardised.

The project report details how the proof of concept uses transactions between crypto exchanges in the Bitcoin network, along with the location of those exchanges, as a proxy for cross-border capital flows. Attribution data links on-chain transactions to crypto exchanges, which are then mapped to their geographical location (where possible).

The derived bilateral flows between countries are visualised on a globe that presents the data in a user-friendly and easily accessible manner. An initial analysis of preliminary data collected by the platform shows that cross-border flows are substantial economically and unevenly distributed across geographical regions.