Bitcoin Blockchain Surpasses One Billion Transactions

Over 15 years, the network of the first cryptocurrency has processed 1 billion transactions. On average, 178,475 operations were conducted daily over the 5603 days of the blockchain’s existence. 

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

— Wicked (@w_s_bitcoin) May 5, 2024

This milestone was reached at block #842,241, mined by the Foundry USA pool.

The total does not include transactions on second-layer networks like the Lightning Network. According to River Financial, in August 2023, the number of routable transactions on the latter rose to 6.6 million per month. 

Bitcoin transaction volume surged following the halving in April. Data from Glassnode shows that on April 23, transactions soared to a record 926,842 in a single day.

The surge in activity was attributed by experts to the launch of the Runes protocol, timed with the halving of the block reward.

Bitcoin developer and Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor introduced the solution in September 2023. The protocol allows for the issuance of fungible tokens on the blockchain of the first cryptocurrency. Unlike BRC-20, it uses the UTXO model, preventing network congestion.

Token issuance operations on Runes led to a record increase in transaction fees on the day of the halving.

Despite being the oldest, the Bitcoin blockchain was not the first to surpass 1 billion operations. For instance, the network of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum, has processed over 2 billion transactions since its launch in 2015, according to Etherscan. Since mid-2020, the daily figure has been around 1-1.5 million.

On May 4, Bitcoin’s price returned to levels above $63,000. Following the flagship, other leading digital assets, including Ethereum, also moved into the “green zone.”