The Bitcoin network is officially unstoppable.
What’s happening:
- The Bitcoin network has now successfully processed over one billion unique transactions since launching
Why it matters:
- Bitcoin has previously been critiqued as having little value outside of price speculation, however the Bitcoin network has continued to become highly important for transactions and has had an influx of new innovation such as the Lightning Network to enable cheaper payments using Bitcoin
By the numbers:
- It only took Bitcoin 15 years to go from initial launch to 1 billion total transactions successfully completed on the blockchain
- This represents an average of approximately 178,475 daily transactions on the Bitcoin network since inception
- Currently, the Bitcoin network is successfully processing approximately 500,000 unique transactions per day
Going deeper:
- Bitcoin has also found its way into the public markets globally, with the United States previously approving spot Bitcoin ETFs to list on major stock exchanges for the first time ever and digital asset ETFs recently launching in Hong Kong
- Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) previously began integrating the Lightning Network into their platform to enable faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions, which is widely seen as one of the biggest breakthroughs yet for using Bitcoin as a payment method
The intrigue:
- The former president of payments giant PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) has publicly stated that he believes the Lightning Network could see Bitcoin completely disrupt cross border payments
