On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid Jeremy Sturdivant 10,000 bitcoins (BTC) for two Papa John’s pizzas delivered to Hanyecz’s home. This transaction is significant as it marks the first known commercial use of bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
Bitcoin Pizza Day often prompts the remark: “Wow, that guy is dumb. If he kept those bitcoins, they’d be worth over $270 million today! Instead, he just got two pizzas.”
But is that true?
While 10,000 BTC is a fortune now, in 2010 it was only worth about two pizzas. Bitcoin needed to be used to gain value, which is why Bitcoin Pizza Day is so pivotal.
This applies broadly, but bitcoin’s meteoric rise is particularly notable, making it an easy target for such remarks. Consider this hypothetical scenario to understand why the "dumb" take is misleading.
Imagine a tech company with four founders hires its first employee, offering a $50,000 salary and a 1% stake in the then-worthless company after a year. The employee leaves after deciding not to return post-sabbatical. If the company, say a social media giant, goes public eight years later at a $100 billion valuation, that 1% stake makes the former employee incredibly wealthy. However, the company didn’t pay $1 billion for a year’s work; it paid $50,000 and a stake in a then-worthless company. Similarly, Hanyecz didn’t spend $270 million on two pizzas. He spent 10,000 bitcoins in 2010 because that was their value at the time.
