Bitcoin Network Processes One Billionth Transaction

The Bitcoin network has reached a significant milestone, processing its one billionth transaction since its inception 15 years ago.

According to Clark Moody’s Bitcoin dashboard, the one billionth transaction occurred in block 842,241 at 9:34 p.m. UTC on May 5. This event marks a monumental moment for the network, which began with the mining of its first block by the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto on January 3, 2009.

Bitcoin Network Achieves Significant Milestone

On average, the Bitcoin network has processed approximately 178,475 transactions per day over its 5,603-day existence. However, this count excludes transactions made on the Lightning Network, a layer-2 payment protocol for BTC designed to facilitate faster transactions.

Data from the Bitcoin-only exchange River indicates that the Lightning Network processed an estimated 6.6 million transactions in August 2023 alone, suggesting that hundreds of millions of transactions have occurred on Lightning since its launch in January 2018.

Daily Transaction Count Spikes

Bitcoin’s daily transaction count experienced a notable spike around its fourth halving event on April 20, reaching a record high of 926,000 transactions processed on April 23. This surge in activity was largely attributed to the launch of the Runes protocol at block 840,000.

However, as of May 4, Bitcoin’s daily transaction count has moderated to 660,260.

Despite being the oldest cryptocurrency network, BTC is not the first to process one billion transactions. Its primary competitor, Ethereum, has processed well over two billion transactions since its launch in July 2015, according to Etherscan data.

BTC Price Action

Currently, Bitcoin is priced at $64,534, marking a 12% increase since it hit a two-month low of $56,800 on May 2, as reported by CoinMarketCap. However, it remains down 13.6% from its all-time high of $73,740 set on March 13.

The milestone of one billion transactions underscores Bitcoin’s enduring significance and adoption, despite the presence of newer and faster blockchain technologies.

Bitcoin Adoption on the Rise

Block Inc. unveiled a new initiative to invest in Bitcoin on a monthly basis, utilizing a portion of its gross profit from Bitcoin products. The company said that it will allocate 10% of its monthly gross profit from BTC products to purchasing BTC for investment purposes.

Further, MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of BTC, announced it will launch a decentralized identity solution on the Bitcoin network that uses Ordinal-based inscriptions to store and retrieve information.

On the other hand, Coinbase began supporting the Bitcoin Lightning Network, providing users with the choice between Lightning and the BTC network when transferring Bitcoin.