Bitcoin price hit an all-time high in December of 2017, as it briefly broke $20,000. Since then a year-long bear market saw it lose over 80% of its value, but in recent months it’s been recovering. A real-world usage indicator suggests the bitcoin price may be undervalued compared to its growing usage.

Since the recovery started, bitcoin’s usage has seemingly been growing more than its price – a trend we saw back in 2017, a year in which the cryptocurrency surged 1,400%.

According to Thomas Lee, the co-founder of independent research boutique Fundstrat Global Advisors, certain events have “confirmed” the cryptocurrency bear market is now over. Factors including improving fundamentals, the market’s reactions to negative news, and increasing trading volumes point that way.

Since the market has seemingly turned around, traders and investors are now looking at the market to look for indicators that may help them navigate the next cycle, and there’s no shortage of theories.

While some take a bearish stance and believe the recent recovery is a dead cat bounce that’ll see us keep on dropping, others are pointing upwards. Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz revealed he believes it’ll consolidate between $7,000 and $10,000.

Fundamentals, such as Bitcoin’s mining difficulty reaching an all-time high as miners show renewed confidence, are most important, while others look at charts to analyze what they can get from historic patterns.

One indicator that’s often overlooked is how people are using the flagship cryptocurrency, and its economic activity. DataLight Laboratory has recently launched a Real Usage Index, which measures how blockchains are used by calculating the number of active addresses and multiplying it by the number of transactions.

The Real Usage Index seemingly shows that so far this year, activity on the Bitcoin blockchain has grown more than the cryptocurrency’s price – just like it did in 2017. In fact, the index is approaching November 2017 values, when BTC started surging to its $20,000 all-time high.

This essentially means that while BTC’s price has seen a significant rise so far this year, it hasn’t been able to keep up with actual usage metrics suggesting that the bitcoin price may be undervalued. The cryptocurrency ecosystem’s bull run in 2017 could, however, have been an exception.

Any analyst will make it clear that past events aren’t indicative of future performance, and that no indicator is bulletproof. However, the index is a handy tool for traders and investors to gauge how active a blockchain really is, looking beyond the hype on social media.