nicspics · How we work

Sources & Methodology

Last updated: October 18, 2026

Where our numbers come from

We use primary or first-hand sources wherever we can, and name the source next to our numbers and charts.

• Prices and market caps: CoinGecko (data provided by CoinGecko), with TradingView and mempool.space used for some charts and BTC prices. Exchange data comes from public Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Bybit and Deribit feeds.
• Stablecoins: CoinGecko “Stablecoins” category market cap, plus a 12-month line that adds up the market caps of the largest named stablecoins (saved snapshot, labeled on the chart). DEX volume: weekly chain DEX volume from Dune (query linked on the page).
• On-chain and network data: mempool.space, Blockchain.com, ultrasound.money (ETH supply) and tehcscreener.com (daily chain activity, labeled on Network stats).
• Liquidations: our own sampled collector (Binance, Bybit and OKX public feeds). It covers part of the market, and it's labeled "sampled". When a post uses another aggregator, we name it and say how many exchanges it covers.
• Macro and policy: the agency itself where possible (Federal Reserve and FRED, SEC, ESMA, congress.gov). News articles are second-hand sources, and we label them that way.

Refresh timing

Live cards fetch data in your browser when the page loads. If a feed is blocked, the card either shows our last saved snapshot with its date, or says "unavailable". It never shows an undated old number. Saved snapshots (liquidations, the economic calendar, some charts) update when we redeploy the site. Dated explainer pages say "as of [date]": treat those figures as a record of that day, not live data.

Time zone

Times on this site and in the newsletter are US Eastern Time (ET). When a source reports in UTC, we convert it. A few daily datasets are defined by their source as full UTC days, and we label those "(UTC)".

How examples and opinions are labeled

Hypothetical trade setups, chart patterns and calculator outputs are labeled as examples (for example, "Educational example only"). They are not real trades, signals or forecasts. Past results don't guarantee future ones.

Rounding

We round to the precision the source supports (for example, $82,010 becomes "about $82,000"). Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix it and say so on our Corrections page, with the date, what changed and why. We don't quietly change a number in a way that changes the meaning. To report an error, message @nicspicstv on X with the link and what looks wrong.

Referral links

Some links are referral links, and each one is labeled “Paid link (referral)”: I may earn a reward if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. Referrals never change which data we show or how we describe it. Full list: referral disclosure.

Not financial advice

nicspics is education and entertainment only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research and verify important numbers with the primary source. The Bitcoin calculators have their own detailed method page: BTC calculator method.

Not financial advice.