As an experienced analyst, I find it truly remarkable that the Bitcoin network has reached a significant milestone of processing one billion transactions. This achievement comes only 15 years and four months after the genesis block was mined, a testament to its resilience and growing adoption.


One significant achievement for the Bitcoin network has been reached: the processing of one billion transactions, which occurred approximately 15 years and 4 months, or 558 days, following the mining of its first block (referred to as the genesis block).

Based on information from Clark Moody’s Bitcoin dashboard, the one billionth transaction was added to block 842,241 in the Bitcoin network on May 5, at 9:34 pm UTC time.

Bitcoin Process One Billion Transactions

Bitcoin reached a new achievement about three weeks after its network underwent its fourth reduction of miner rewards. This reduction, which took place on April 19, lowered the reward for mining a block from 6.25 Bitcoins to 3.125 BTC. At that time, Bitcoin’s total transaction count was approximately 990.64 million.

As a researcher studying the dynamics of this network, I’ve observed an impressive surge in daily transactions over the past month. This growth can be attributed to the recent introduction of new protocols such as Ordinals, Runes, and the BRC-20 token standard.

The introduction of Ordinals led to the emergence of Bitcoin NFTs, resulting in heightened user engagement on the network. According to data from the market analysis platform Dune, a staggering $432 million has been expended as transaction fees for over 66.4 million inscriptions. This evidence suggests that market players have remained active on the Bitcoin network.

Alternatively, Runes was introduced on Bitcoin’s halving day, specifically on the block following the halving event. This protocol enhances Bitcoin’s capabilities by enabling the generation of fungible tokens, similar to Ethereum. Over the halving weekend, approximately half of all Bitcoin transactions were conducted using Runes, outpacing Ordinals and controlling the network’s activity.

An additional factor fueling the surge in Bitcoin transactions is the debut of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US and Hong Kong markets. The Bitcoin ETF sector now boasts a market capitalization of $53.41 billion and manages a total asset value of $52.68 billion.

Not the First

As a researcher studying the growth of Bitcoin, I’ve observed that it took approximately 15 years for the network to process one billion transactions. However, given the increasing adoption and influx of new users, it is reasonable to anticipate that we will surpass two billion transactions in a shorter timeframe compared to the first billion.

Notable is the fact that Bitcoin isn’t the first blockchain to surpass one billion transactions. That milestone was reached by Ethereum several years ago, and it has since processed approximately 2.4 billion transactions since its inception in 2015.

As a researcher studying the Bitcoin network, I’ve come across an interesting observation. While we’ve reached a significant milestone with one billion transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, it’s essential to note that this count does not include transactions processed through the Lightning Network. Launched in 2018, the Lightning Network functions as a layer-2 protocol, enabling faster and cheaper transactions off-chain. Therefore, the actual number of Bitcoin transactions may be higher than what’s reported based on the blockchain data alone.

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2024-05-06 15:06