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:| Metric | Raw Volume | Adjusted Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Includes CEX | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Includes DeFi | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Includes Infrastructure | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Real-world payments | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Reflects true utility | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
- Raw volume: 6B CEX, 2B payments)
- Adjusted volume: $2B (only organic payments)
Pipeline Architecture
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Raw Stablecoin Transfers | All chains, all stablecoins, all addresses |
| 2. Attribution Filtering | Remove CEX/DeFi/Infrastructure addresses → Organic transfers only |
| 3. Wallet Classification | Consumer / Business / Institutional / Unclassified with balance tiers, engagement scores, risk scores |
| 4. Transaction Classification | Real-World Payment / Investment / Store of Value with wallet type combinations (C2C, C2B, B2C, B2B, etc.) |
| 5. Payment Categorization | Granular purpose: P2P, Retail, Payroll, B2B, etc. (only for real-world payments) |
Tables
The pipeline produces four primary tables in thecrosschain.stablecoin schema:
| Table Name | Description |
|---|---|
crosschain.stablecoin.filtered_transfers | Organic transfers only (CEX/DeFi/Infrastructure excluded). Includes: chain, token_symbol, from/to_address, usd_amount |
crosschain.stablecoin.wallet_classification | Comprehensive wallet profiling. Includes: balance_tier, behavioral_segment, engagement_score, risk_score |
crosschain.stablecoin.transaction_classification | Transaction type identification. Includes: transaction_type, wallet_type_combination, from/to_wallet_type |
crosschain.stablecoin.payment_categorization | Granular 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:2. Payment Type Distribution
Understand how stablecoins are being used:3. Payment Purpose Breakdown
Analyze granular payment categories:4. Wallet Segmentation
Profile wallet behavior and risk:Next Steps
Adjusted Volume Methodology
Learn how we calculate adjusted volume and filter non-organic activity
Table Reference
Detailed schema documentation for all pipeline tables