Bitcoin Network Surpasses 500 Million Transactions

February 10, 2020 – Blockchain analytics site Statoshi reveals 500 million transactions on the Bitcoin network, a major milestone for the 10-year old network.

CTO of the website Statoshi Jameson Lopp noted the milestone on Twitter as well:

Today, as of block 00000000000000000001145bf2e7cb7f04df55feaf3b55d9f6511522bbbf333f at height 616064, Bitcoin surpassed 500 million transactions confirmed on the blockchain. https://t.co/eVLbYnHohj

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) February 5, 2020

Some commenters on Twitter mentioned that while this is certainly a milestone, it will “be crazy to think how many transactions will happen on the Lightning Network”. Lightning network is the second layer technology that aims to scale the Bitcoin blockchain’s capability as a micropayment channel. Transactions on Lightning are instant, compared to how long transactions are confirmed currently on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The first Bitcoin transaction happened on January 12, 2009 when its creator Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to the late computer scientist Hal Finney. The first commercial transaction (a transaction where Bitcoin is used to pay for a product or service) was when Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 BTC to pay for 2 pizzas to Jeremy Sturdivant.

Credit card transactions, on the other hand, has increased by 11% in 2019. According to the Financial Mirror, the largest volumes of transactions were in professional services, electronics, hotels, and utilities. In 2018 alone, credit card transactions were worth $3.7 trillion.

Source: Cointelegraph

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