Bitcoin Network celebrates 1 billion transactions

The Bitcoin network recorded its 1 billionth transaction this Monday (06), according to data from Clark Moody’s Bitcoin panel. The historic milestone comes about 15 years after the extraction of the genesis block in January 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto.

As data from the Clark Moody panel shows, the network processed its billionth transaction in block 842,241 at 05:34 UTC+8 on May 6. On average, the Bitcoin network has processed 178,475 transactions per day in the 15 years since its launch.

In its early years, transactions on the Bitcoin network were driven primarily by users who used the currency to move value between themselves. However, this has changed recently with the integration of new solutions and projects.

Historic milestone for the Bitcoin network

Transactions on the Bitcoin network and their corresponding fees have been a key point of discussion among industry participants in recent weeks. This is, in part, due to the introduction of the Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes protocols.

The latter consists of a fungible token protocol launched in conjunction with the latest Bitcoin halving last month. The Runes protocol drove transaction fees on the Bitcoin network to an all-time high during its debut.

Initially introduced by the pseudonymous founder as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system, Bitcoin has historically been an inefficient blockchain for tokenized assets such as non-fungible or fungible tokens when compared to other networks like Solana or Ethereum.

The introduction of Ordinals, for example, brought a new wave of tokenized assets to the network, inscribing data in satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, allowing a version of NFTs to exist on the network.

The blockchain of the largest cryptocurrency on the market recorded its highest daily transaction volume on April 23. As of that date, the network has processed more than 926,000 transactions, of which approximately 90% originated from the Runes protocol.

With the launch of Runes, primarily used for memecoins today, fungible tokens could potentially introduce new possibilities to the network, such as expanded applications for decentralized finance.

Meanwhile, BTC struggles to stay above $65,000. According to data from CoinGecko, in the last week the price of BTC has risen 3% and, at the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is costing US$64,150.