Key Takeaways
- A programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas on May 22, 2010
- The day is now celebrated around crypto circles as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”
A cryptocurrency legend, Laszlo Hanyecz, decided he wanted a free lunch on May 22, 2010. The Floridian citizen, a crypto enthusiast and a developer ended up purchasing two large pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, something he considered “a deal”. The programmer is now well-known in crypto circles and, in his honor, the crypto community celebrates tomorrow, May 22, as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
“I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas… like maybe 2 large ones so I have some leftover for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later”. That’s what the programmer said on a popular Bitcoin community forum in a thread called “Pizza for bitcoins?” “You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place,” the developer continues.
The thread carries on and another user jumps in by saying that the 10,000 bitcoins on offer are quite a bit and the bidder could sell those for $41. As no one volunteers for quite a while, Laszlo Hanyecz comes back to ask if the amount offered is too low. However, his next contribution to the discussion confirms he successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John’s pizzas. He goes further to attach pictures of the delivered pizza.
$400 Million Pizza Order
Later, it became clear that a British man took up Mr. Hanyecz’s offer. In exchange for two pizzas worth around $25 the man received the promised 10,000 bitcoins, valued at roughly $40 at the time. As time progressed, the bitcoin pizza purchase was growing in value. Nine months after the deal, bitcoin reached parity with the US dollar, lifting the price of the two pizzas to $10,000. At the tenth anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, last year, the two pizzas were valued at $91,710,000 as bitcoin traded around $9,171 per coin.
And this year, the two pizzas are looking at a valuation of $400,000,000 based on bitcoin’s current market price of around $40,000.
Buy, sell, exchange and store Bitcoin securely. Log in to Zeply now.