After more than 15 years since its creation, the Bitcoin network has reached a new milestone today by completing its 1 billionth transaction. However, Bitcoin is not the first blockchain to achieve 1 billion transactions. Ethereum has processed nearly 2.4 billion transactions to date.
According to data from Clark Moody, the 1 billionth transaction on the Bitcoin network occurred at block height 842,241, on May 6th at 05:34:43 (Taiwan time). This comes 15 years, 4 months, and 4 days after Bitcoin’s anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block on January 3, 2009.
Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin has averaged only 6 transactions per second. Throughout its 5,603 days of existence, the Bitcoin network has processed an average of 178,475 transactions per day. However, this figure does not include transactions conducted on the Lightning Network, a Bitcoin Layer 2 payment protocol designed for fast transactions between participating nodes.
A report by the Bitcoin-specific trading platform River previously stated that as early as August 2023, the Lightning Network had already processed a minimum of 6.6 million transactions. Since its launch in January 2018, the Lightning Network has completed hundreds of millions of transactions.
Following Bitcoin’s fourth halving around April 20th, the number of transactions has surged. On April 23rd, a record-breaking 926,000 transactions were conducted in a single day. This was mainly driven by the Rune protocol, which was launched simultaneously with the Bitcoin halving. However, the daily transaction count has since declined to 660,260 as of May 4th.
Despite reaching the milestone of 1 billion transactions, Bitcoin’s scalability remains a concern. Analyst Colin Talks Crypto tweeted that as Bitcoin continues to grow, concerns about its scalability and capacity issues persist. He predicts that Bitcoin’s price will reach exciting peaks in the future, leading to network congestion and skyrocketing transaction fees that many people will not be able to afford. He even suggests that transaction fees may exceed 90% of the balances held in Bitcoin addresses, ultimately necessitating an increase in block size. Colin Talks Crypto also criticizes the feasibility of the Lightning Network, believing that it cannot address the core issues of the underlying layer.
While Bitcoin is the oldest blockchain, it is not the first blockchain to achieve 1 billion transactions. According to Etherscan data, since its launch in July 2015, Ethereum has processed nearly 2.4 billion transactions.
Related Articles
Epic•Epic•Epic•Epic: Bitcoin Surpasses $83 Million Market Cap! Blob Floor Price Increases by Over 16%
Snowden’s “Final Warning” to Bitcoin: Strengthen Privacy Now! Developers Have Limited Time
Bitcoin Rebound: Spot ETF Sees Net Inflows of $330 Million! Bitfinex Whale Bullish Position Increases by 6%