Bitcoin Network Reaches One Billion Transactions, 15 Years After Its Launch

Bitcoin network has officially surpassed one billion processed transactions. According to data published on Clark Moody Bitcoin, one billionth transaction was processed in block 842,241 at 9:34 pm UTC on May 5. 

This achievement comes exactly 15 years, four months, and four days after the pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, mined Bitcoin’s first block on Jan. 3, 2009. On average, Bitcoin has seen 178,475 daily transactions over its 5,603-day history. However, these figures don’t include transactions made on Lightning Network, a Bitcoin layer-2 solution designed to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions, particularly micropayments.

Data from River, a Bitcoin-only exchange, found that the Lightning Network processed an estimated 6.6 million transactions in August last year, hinting at significant activity since its launch in January 2018. 

#Bitcoin has officially processed over 1 billion transactions. pic.twitter.com/kS704YYoW5

— Wicked (@w_s_bitcoin) May 5, 2024

Bitcoin is not the first blockchain network to surpass over a billion transactions. Ethereum (ETH), for instance, has processed more than 2 billion transactions, even though it was launched about six years after BTC.

At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $65,219, showing a 2.52% increase over the last 24 hours. It is still down by 11.6% from its previous all-time high of $73,737 set on March 13 this year. Meanwhile, ETH is trading at $3,201, indicating a 2.01% increase over the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin Sees an Increase In Transactions During Fourth Halving 

The BTC network experienced a notable surge in daily transactions around its fourth halving event on Apr. 20. Transactions peaked at 926,000 on Apr. 23, mainly due to the excitement around the Runes protocol launch, a new Bitcoin token standard introduced at block 840,000. The launch of spot BTC ETFs also led to bullish sentiment for the token over the past year. However, BTC’s daily transaction count has since cooled off to 660,260 on May 4.

Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo recently drew a striking comparison, mentioning that Bitcoin’s current adoption rate of 4.7% resembles the level of internet adoption in January 1999. This comparison suggests that despite BTC’s rising popularity, it’s still in its early adoption phase.

#Bitcoin is at 4.7% world adoption, this is the same as Jan 1999 for Internet Adoption.

You are still early… and that's backed by the best data available. https://t.co/bq9P50Nban pic.twitter.com/dyyRSFLrC3

— Willy Woo (@woonomic) May 3, 2024