Bitcoin’s 5 billion transactions: Hold tight, it’s just getting started

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On December 12, 2024, the BSV network processed 90,838,281 transactions in a single day. It was a record-breaking high point for the network over the past week or so, which has seen 10 straight days of over 65 million transactions each. The streak also saw Bitcoin pass another milestone: over 5 billion transactions processed since the network began operating in January 2009.

There’s been speculation among BSV followers recently over who might be responsible for the massive increase in transaction volumes. Blockchain explorer and data source WhatsOnChain don’t yet have identifying tags for those millions of transactions, but most likely, it’s a test of some sort. A test that BSV appears to be passing with flying colors.

Just to clarify something that’s bound to be a talking point: even when it’s a “test,” those are genuine transactions as far as the network is concerned. They’re occurring on the Bitcoin mainnet, not a test net. Whoever’s sending those transactions is paying the appropriate fee, and processors (i.e., miners) are earning income from them.

What matters is that BSV has the ability to handle tens of millions of transactions per day on the main network without any technical glitches or frozen transfers. We should also point out another statistic: the average per-transaction fee has remained lower than USD$0.0001. On the day the BSV network processed over 90 million transactions, ordinary users could still send single transactions of any size for $6.7e-7 (that’s $0.00000067 for those unfamiliar with negative exponentials).

5 Billion BSV transactions. Going up. pic.twitter.com/j2Igow2nei

— Bitcrash (@Bitcrash4) December 15, 2024

Ninety million transactions per day is pretty amazing, and hitting the 5 billion total transaction mark before the end of 2024 is worth some applause. Soon, however, it’ll seem less impressive. The BSV network is on the cusp of getting its biggest capacity upgrade ever as “Teranode” moves to the mainnet in the coming months.

BSV currently runs on protocol software named BitcoinSV Node. Teranode follows exactly the same rules as the existing SV Node, but has been rewritten to handle billions (with a “b”) transactions a day and millions per second. Any transaction created on BSV after Bitcoin’s birth in January 2009 will be just as valid under Teranode as they were 10-15 years ago.

Real Bitcoin versus digital gold in static vaults

At this point, we have to mention the sad story of BTC. Yes, that BTC—the ticker symbol and trading platform darling also passes itself off as “Bitcoin.” BSV and BTC shared a common transaction record until mid-2017 when a network fork saw them head their separate ways. BTC chose to be an almost static speculative asset on a network that can’t scale. BSV chose to scale massively on-chain.

BTC is sad not for its current dollar value, but for breaking Bitcoin’s promise to be a feasible worldwide electronic cash network that would empower ordinary people everywhere. BTC’s entire network now processes a maximum of around 5 transactions per second (that’s 5 with no zeros at all) and, for the past week, has had per-transaction fees of $3-9. That’s fine (sort-of) if you’re a crypto-bro withdrawing money from a fiat exchange, but it’s not saving the world. BTC these days is more honey pot than honey badger.

BSV chose to restore Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of Bitcoin, which would actually function as money. That’s what “SV” stands for. On BSV, millions of transactions at minuscule fees give the world something far more enticing than making a small handful of traders a few quick bucks.

BTC’s proponents will say, “But look at the monetary value of our 5 transactions per second instead! There’s way more value being transacted on BTC”. On the surface, that’s true, at least in USD (and euro, pounds, and yen). But remember, most of that “value” comes from speculative trading of the BTC unit; BTC holders send funds to and from trading exchanges, and sell them for fiat currency gains.

Nominally, that’s value, at least for the small percentage of people in the world who hold and trade cryptos. In real economically-beneficial terms, though, its value is more debatable. The lapel pin I have from 2014 says Bitcoin will “Free the Markets, Free the World.” At the end of 2024, BTC has a USD market price of $106,000. That’s a win if you sell your BTC for more dollars than you bought it for, but I’m not feeling the gains in the market or personal freedom. Can you actually use BTC for anything besides buying and selling it for fiat money?

Scalable Bitcoin (that is, BSV) is a network that aims to create entirely new financial models rather than a price-betting game that leaches off the existing one. High-volume and low-fee transactions lead to new opportunities based on microtransactions and ownership/exchange of data. There’s a new economy in social media interactions, there’s another one in pieces of code and creative content, and another one in scientific research and data-collecting. It also works for selling physical goods and commodities for a few cents each.

One person earning one cent isn’t very headline-grabbing as a one-time event. But on a network where you can earn that cent a million times (or more) every day, and we’re talking real growth potential. It’s also a far more long-term sustainable prospect for miners, too. With billions of transactions on a network the entire world can use, miners can actually earn income from their work. There’s no need to pump the coin price or keep raising those transaction fees to stay afloat.

Watch: Bringing the Metanet to life with Teranode