Bitcoin Records Over 1 Billion Transactions But Solana at Over 280 Billion
Pioneering cryptocurrency Bitcoin has reached a notable benchmark with its record of over 1 billion transactions. According to a report on Clark Moody’s Bitcoin dashboard, Bitcoin passed the 1,000,000,000 threshold on May 5 in block 842,241 at 9:34 pm UTC.
Bitcoin’s pivotal moment came 15 years, four months, and four days after the pseudonymous creator of the cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto, created it on January 3, 2009. Since then, Bitcoin has recorded over 1 billion transactions, with an average daily transaction count of 178,475 over its 5,603-day history, excluding Lightning Network transactions.
The Lightning Network is a payment protocol on the Bitcoin blockchain, which uses the Lightning Network as its underlying network for cheaper and faster transactions. Since its launch in 208, the network recorded about 6.6 million transactions in August 2023 alone.
Bitcoin 1 Billion Transactions Feat
Since its genesis block, the Bitcoin blockchain has actively recorded transactions. However, some of the crypto’s recent events and developments are some of the factors that caused the high surge of transactions that facilitated the new record.
One of the factors that caused new transaction records on the blockchain was Bitcoin’s fourth halving event on April 20—the last halving day, which comes every four years, caused the blockchain to record 926,000 transactions on April 23.
Secondly, the introduction of Bitcoin Ordinals and the launch of the Runes Protocol, which were created for the development of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain, will most likely have contributed to the increase in transaction numbers.
Other events, such as the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs, have also enhanced the bullish momentum for the token.
Bitcoin Vs. Solana
Despite Bitcoin’s label as the oldest cryptocurrency, it is not the first to execute 1 billion transactions. Ethereum has surpassed 2 billion transactions, while Solana has processed over 280 billion transactions.
Solana’s high record of transactions is due to several factors. For instance, the network uses a higher rate of arbitrage bots and NFT minting bots than the Bitcoin blockchain. In addition, its proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism allows the network to execute many transactions per second, making it faster for users and lowering transaction fees.
