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What is the Payments Pipeline?

The Payments Pipeline is Allium’s comprehensive framework for identifying, classifying, and analyzing real-world payments across blockchain networks. It transforms raw stablecoin transfer data into actionable insights about payment behavior, distinguishing genuine economic activity from noise.

Core Concept: Adjusted Volume

Adjusted Volume represents stablecoin transaction volume after filtering out non-organic activity. This provides a more accurate measure of real economic utility by removing:
  • CEX (Centralized Exchange) activity - Internal exchange operations and market making
  • DeFi Protocol activity - Smart contract interactions, liquidity provision, and automated trading
  • Infrastructure activity - Bridge contracts, multisigs, and other operational addresses

Why Adjusted Volume Matters

Raw blockchain volume includes significant noise that inflates the actual payment activity:
MetricRaw VolumeAdjusted Volume
Includes CEX✅ Yes❌ No
Includes DeFi✅ Yes❌ No
Includes Infrastructure✅ Yes❌ No
Real-world payments✅ Yes✅ Yes
Reflects true utility❌ No✅ Yes
Example:
  • Raw volume: 10B(includes10B (includes 6B CEX, 2BDeFi,2B DeFi, 2B payments)
  • Adjusted volume: $2B (only organic payments)

Pipeline Architecture

Tables

The pipeline produces four primary tables in the crosschain.stablecoin schema:
Table NameDescription
crosschain.stablecoin.filtered_transfersOrganic transfers only (CEX/DeFi/Infrastructure excluded).
Includes: chain, token_symbol, from/to_address, usd_amount
crosschain.stablecoin.wallet_classificationComprehensive wallet profiling.
Includes: balance_tier, behavioral_segment, engagement_score, risk_score
crosschain.stablecoin.transaction_classificationTransaction type identification.
Includes: transaction_type, wallet_type_combination, from/to_wallet_type
crosschain.stablecoin.payment_categorizationGranular payment purpose (real-world payments only).
Includes: core_payment_category, payment_purpose

Use Cases

1. Payment Volume Analytics

Track real-world stablecoin payment adoption across chains:
SELECT
  chain,
  token_symbol,
  DATE_TRUNC('week', block_timestamp) AS week,
  SUM(usd_amount) AS weekly_payment_volume
FROM crosschain.stablecoin.filtered_transfers
GROUP BY 1, 2, 3
ORDER BY 3 DESC;

2. Payment Type Distribution

Understand how stablecoins are being used:
SELECT
  transaction_type,
  COUNT(*) AS transaction_count,
  SUM(usd_amount) AS total_volume_usd
FROM crosschain.stablecoin.transaction_classification
GROUP BY 1;

3. Payment Purpose Breakdown

Analyze granular payment categories:
SELECT
  core_payment_category,
  payment_purpose,
  COUNT(*) AS payment_count,
  SUM(usd_amount) AS total_usd
FROM crosschain.stablecoin.payment_categorization
GROUP BY 1, 2
ORDER BY 4 DESC;

4. Wallet Segmentation

Profile wallet behavior and risk:
SELECT
  balance_tier,
  behavioral_segment,
  engagement_tier,
  COUNT(DISTINCT address) AS wallet_count,
  AVG(engagement_score) AS avg_engagement,
  AVG(risk_score) AS avg_risk
FROM crosschain.stablecoin.wallet_classification
GROUP BY 1, 2, 3;

Next Steps