The two Papa John’s pizzas that programmer Laszlo Hanyecz ordered in 2010 for 10,000 BTC have become one of the famous events, marking a historical moment in the cryptocurrency world. At the current market, they are worth over 980 million USD. Compared to the historical peak on November 22, the two pizzas could be valued at approximately 1 billion USD (25 trillion VND).
However, the condition for this to happen is that the American programmer must have kept that 10,000 BTC in his wallet for the past 14 years. This is unlikely given that the digital currency has undergone many price surges. Few people can hold Bitcoin that long, unless they lose their USB or forget the password to the wallet.
In a 2019 interview on CBS's 60 Minutes, Hanyecz recounted the first real-world transaction conducted with digital currency. “I posted on a forum saying something like ‘If anyone is interested, I will pay 10,000 BTC for a pizza.’ Then someone accepted the offer. So I sent him 10,000 Bitcoin. Then that person paid with a credit card, and two pizzas were delivered to my house,” the programmer recounted.
Hanyecz's “wastefulness” has become a persistent meme in the cryptocurrency community, especially after each growth cycle of digital currencies, when prices rise exponentially.
“I couldn't imagine Bitcoin would be worth that much. Therefore, the idea of exchanging them for a pizza at that time was quite appealing,” Laszlo told the New York Times in 2013.
The famous transaction took place on May 22, 2010. Since then, the Bitcoin community has called it “Pizza Day” and celebrates it every year.
On May 22, 2016, the 10,000 BTC that Hanyecz spent was valued at about 4.4 million USD. When he bought the two pizzas, they were only worth 41 USD.
Just two years later, on Pizza Day 2018, the aforementioned digital currency surged to 41 million USD, ten times the amount in 2016, and ten million times the amount in 2010.
Bitcoin is the first digital currency, maintaining the highest position in the industry, despite the emergence of other blockchains that are more technologically advanced or optimized. Its original applications, as designed by Satoshi Nakamoto, are no longer practical. However, BTC is viewed as “gold” in the cryptocurrency world, with a limited quantity and store of value.
The total supply of Bitcoin is 21 million coins. However, according to a report by Unchained Capital, about 3.8 million of these are classified as lost, leading to a scarcity of supply.
Additionally, using BTC to purchase real assets is banned in most countries. It is only available in El Salvador, a South American country that legalized Bitcoin in 2021.
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