- Bitcoin surpassed one billion transactions processed, 800 weeks after its launch on January 3, 2009
- The milestone comes amid heightened daily transactions due to protocols like Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes, as well as the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs
- While daily transaction fees have cooled after the halving hype, the seven-day moving average of transactions remains high compared to most of Bitcoin’s history
Bitcoin has reached a monumental milestone, processing over 1 billion transactions in its lifetime according to data from Clark Moody‘s Bitcoin dashboard. This comes around 800 weeks after Bitcoin first launched on January 3, 2009 with the creation of its genesis block.
Over a Decade in the Making
While other blockchains like Ethereum have long surpassed 1 billion transactions due to their more frequent usage, Bitcoin’s journey to this milestone has been much slower and longer. At around 6 transactions per second on average over the past 30 days, it took Bitcoin over a decade to reach this landmark achievement.
The milestone comes during an exciting time for Bitcoin, which has seen heightened daily transaction levels over the past year thanks to new protocols like Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes that are attracting more activity on the blockchain. The launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the past year has also created bullish sentiment around the cryptocurrency.
Looking Ahead After Recent Halving
While daily transaction fees have cooled after the recent halving hype, Bitcoin’s 7-day moving average of transactions remains elevated compared to most of its history outside of the past year. This means Bitcoin is well on its way towards 2 billion total transactions processed as adoption continues to grow.
The milestone comes just weeks after Bitcoin’s most recent programmed halving event, where the block reward paid out to miners was cut in half. Halvings are scheduled to occur every 210,000 blocks, or about every 4 years, until the maximum supply of 21 million bitcoins is reached.
So while Bitcoin is celebrating its current milestone, the road to 2 billion transactions processed will likely take several more years even with increasing usage and adoption. But for a cryptocurrency that has already exceeded expectations to get this far, more major milestones likely await in Bitcoin’s future.
