#pizzaday
Bitcoin Pizza Day: Fourteen years ago today Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for a pizza, marking the first commercial transaction made using the cryptocurrency. And with it, Bitcoin Pizza Day was born.
The Florida-based programmer, aged 28 at the time, posted a pizza order in a Bitcoin Talk Forum on May 22, 2010.
He wanted a pizza delivery “where I don’t have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a ‘breakfast platter’ at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you’re happy!”
Pizza Set the Stage for Bitcoin Revolution
Hanyecz offered 10,000 bitcoin (BTC) to the person who would bring him the pizzas.
“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,” he said.
“You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I’m aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins…”
Jeremy Sturdivant, a California student who was 19 at the time, took up the offer and brought Hanyecz two large pizzas from Papa John’s for 10,000 Bitcoin.
The deal, which has since been mythologized as Bitcoin Pizza Day, has earned notoriety over time because 10,000 BTC, worth about $41 at the time, is now worth $700 million at existing prices.
More importantly, Pizza Day marked the first time Bitcoin, first mined by its pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto on January 3, 2009, was ever used in a commercial transaction. The transaction spawned an industry that is now valued at $2.7 trillion.
11 years ago today, a very hungry programmer, Laszlo Hanyecz, paid 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's pies, marking the very first bitcoin pizza transaction, ever. Considering today’s bitcoin value, that trade is worth roughly $613 million. Happy #pizzaday
