Bitcoin beaches one billion transactions milestone

Bitcoin (BTC) — the world’s first and most valuable cryptocurrency — has surpassed one billion processed transactions. This milestone was reached 800 weeks and one day after the launch of Bitcoin on January 3, 2009, with the minting of its genesis block.

The timing of this milestone is particularly exciting for the cryptocurrency, as it has experienced heightened levels of daily transactions over the past year. This increase in activity can be also partly attributed to the emergence of novel Bitcoin-based non-fungible token (NFT) protocols such as Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes, which have attracted more users to the world’s first blockchain. Additionally, the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US and more recently in Hong Kong has contributed to a bullish sentiment for the token over the past year.

Bitcoin not the first cryptocurrency to hit milestone

While this is not the first blockchain to reach the one billion transaction milestone — its rival Ethereum (ETH), for example, has already processed nearly 2.4 billion transactions — Bitcoin’s journey to this point has been slower and more gradual. With an average rate of 6 transactions per second over the past 30 days, according to Clark Moody’s Bitcoin dashboard, the achievement comes just weeks after its most recent programmed halving event.

Following the halving hype, daily transaction fees have largely cooled down. However, the seven-day moving average of transactions on the chain remains high compared to most of Bitcoin’s history, excluding the past year. As the world’s first cryptocurrency begins its journey towards two billion total transactions, it continues to demonstrate its resilience and growing adoption in the world of cryptocurrencies.

The Bitcoin halving is a pre-programmed event that occurs approximately every four years, or more precisely, every 210,000 blocks. During the halving, the reward given to Bitcoin miners for verifying and adding new transactions to the blockchain is cut in half.

When Bitcoin was first launched, the initial block reward was 50 BTC. After the first halving in 2012, it was reduced to 25 BTC. The second halving in 2016 decreased the reward to 12.5 BTC, and the most recent halving in May 2020 further reduced it to 6.25 BTC. This event essentially halves Bitcoin’s issuance rate, until the last halving will completely do away with issuance.