Bitcoin’s blockchain has processed 1 billion transactions, 15 years after its creation, a significant moment in its approximately 15-year journey.
This milestone was achieved on May 5, at 9:34 pm UTC, with the mining of transaction #1,000,000,000 into block 842,241.
The journey from Satoshi Nakamoto’s mining of the network’s first block on January 3, 2009, to this billionth transaction has spanned 15 years, four months, and four days. Throughout its 5,603-day existence, Bitcoin has maintained an average of 178,475 daily transactions.
It’s worth noting that this transaction count excludes those executed on the Lightning Network, a layer 2 solution for Bitcoin.
This achievement arrives amidst a dynamic period for Bitcoin. Innovations such as Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes have attracted increased activity to the pioneering blockchain. Additionally, the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs has bolstered optimism for the digital asset.
Transaction volumes surged notably around Bitcoin’s fourth halving event on April 20, with a peak of 926,000 transactions processed on April 23. The launch of the Runes protocol, a new Bitcoin token standard at block 840,000, contributed significantly to this demand. However, daily transaction numbers moderated to 660,260 by May 4.
While Bitcoin has now joined the billion-transaction club, it’s not the first blockchain to achieve this feat. Ethereum, launched approximately six years after Bitcoin, has processed well over 2 billion transactions.
Presently, Bitcoin is trading around the $63,700 mark, reflecting a 12% rebound from its recent low of $56,800 on May 2. However, it remains 13.6% below its previous all-time high of $73,740 reached on March 13 of this year.
