Bitcoin Used To Buy Pizza

Bitcoin Pizza Day marks the day on which an early Bitcoin enthusiast purchased pizza using Bitcoin on May 22nd, 2010. The guy who bought pizza with Bitcoin was a programmer and early miner named Laszlo Hanyecz.

bitcoin used to buy pizza

At the time, 10,000 Bitcoin was worth $41. Compared to its all-time-high, those 10,000 Bitcoin would be valued at $690,000,000! Despite this, Hanyecz has no regrets about using his cryptocurrency to buy pizza. Buying pizza with Bitcoin made crypto real for him when it was barely known outside of the crypto community.

The BitPay Card can be used at any pizza shop that accepts Mastercard. The only difference between the crypto debit card and a regular debit card is that instead of pulling from a bank account, you load the BitPay Card from your crypto wallet.

The purchase equated to roughly $41 dollars back in 2010, based on the going rate for bitcoin back then, and is widely viewed as the first time a virtual currency had been used to buy anything in the real world.

Hanyecz has been interviewed many times and his pizza purchase has come to be reflected upon as one of the key moments in the evolution of bitcoin and the decentralized, distributed-ledger technology that would ultimately buttress a crypto market that was worth about $2.5 trillion at its peak. The value of crypto tracked by CoinMarketCap.com is valued at $1.56 trillion as of Saturday afternoon, with bitcoin representing 45% of that value and the No. 2 most popular crypto, Ether on the Ethereum blockchain ETHUSD, +0.46%, making up 18% of that total crypto market value.

Ultimately, Bitcoin Pizza day is being used by some crypto bulls as a time to reflect on how far blockchain-based assets have come and how far they might still have to go to achieve further legitimacy.

Questions about how countries will tolerate the rise of crypto remain. Bitcoin and its ilk have been pummeled by reports that China will aim to crack down on digital assets. And a statement by the U.S. Treasury Department, noting that it will look to enforce anti-money-laundering rules for bitcoin transactions of $10,000 or greater. has dented enthusiasm in the sector.

Meanwhile, some market strategists have been highlighting the ties between stocks, like the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.73%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.43% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.57% and bitcoin.

Call it a fad or a real deal, cryptocurrency has taken the world by storm and no one can shut their eyes against it. The virtual currency scenario is a brimming space for entrepreneurs and market investors. But how did it all begin? The first crypto-transaction was apparently over two pizzas. Shocked? Well, on May 22, 2010, Florida-based Laszlo Hanyecz traded his Bitcoins to get two pizzas from a local pizza store. The transaction is known as the first official use of Bitcoin for a commercial transaction with an actual company. But Bitcoin wasn't yet an acceptable currency in the market. So, how did Laszlo Hanyecz trade his coins?

In 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 Bitcoins at a local pizza restaurant called Papa John's to buy himself two pizzas. Back then his Bitcoins were worth only $40. But, since the cryptocurrency wasn't yet a thing in the commercial world, Hanyecz reached out to the Bitcointalk community and openly traded his Bitcoins to anyone who would buy him these pizzas. Considering Bitcoin's value today, which is over $46k currently, these two pizzas can be regarded as the costliest pizzas of all time.

Following the craze over both Bitcoins and pizzas, none of which seem to stop any soon, Anthony Pompliano (founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital) announced a week-long Bitcoin pizza drive through his Twitter account. The drive took place this May. His tweet read, "Today I am announcing Bitcoin Pizza - a new national pizza brand that is launching in 10 cities."

Crypto exchanges like Binance and Huobi marked the infamous Bitcoin Pizza Day by announcing competitions separately. Huobi reportedly ran a $22,000 prize pool, where one user would be given $5,220. Binance was also reported to run an NFT promotion that offered $52,200 worth of Bitcoin pizza to the winner.

Today, the Bitcoin community worldwide commemorates May 22 as the first recorded day that Bitcoin was used to purchase a physical good. The community celebrates by buying two pizzas and sharing them. Pizza restaurants also contribute to the celebration by offering discounts to customers who pay in Bitcoin.

Laszlo responded to the delivery on BitcoinTalk.org by saying, "That pizza looks delicious! Adorable kid. (Cheesy Emoji)". He later stated that he was willing to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for future pizza deliveries. On the same thread, he stated, "My 1 year old daughter really enjoys pizza too! She just smears it all over her face if you give her a whole slice, but she does eventually manage to get most of it in her mouth (minus a few loose toppings of course)." It's a beautiful story. Laszlo took a family photo after the delivery marking perhaps one of the biggest milestones in the Bitcoin story.

The May 22 pizza transaction paved the way for a decentralized form of money with a hard capitalization of 21 million that can be sent and received without permission. The world had not yet seen a tamper-proof, sensor-proof digital currency with no centralized issuer.

Since May 22, 2010, the Bitcoin community has grown and developments have been made that allow you to buy a pizza using Bitcoin on the lightning network today, with transaction costs reduced to cents on the dollar. Thousands of merchants now accept Bitcoin payments for pizza and other products, and infrastructure has advanced to the point where you no longer need to post a bitcoin offer on BitcoinTalk.org to purchase a product.

Shehan is the Head of Tax Strategy at CoinTracker.io (bitcoin & crypto tax software). He is one of the handful of CPAs in the country who is recognized as a real-world operator and a conceptual subject matter expert on cryptocurrency taxation.

Almost 12 years ago, a Floridian programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz was craving pizza. So, he bought two. But the catch here is, that he paid in Bitcoin in the first-ever recorded real-world transaction using crypto.

Celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day helps create awareness about cryptocurrency. One can choose to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza day with authentic pizzas. Try paying with bitcoin. You can also invest in cryptocurrency and learn how the crypto industry works.

What a peculiar combination: bitcoin and pizza. Nonetheless, an entire day has been designated for each of these occasions. All of this is done in recognition of the innovations that crypto has brought to the world.

Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for his renowned pizza purchase. This quantity was worth around $41 at the time. The value of the crypto has grown rapidly over time. Currently, 10,000 BTC are valued close to $300 million.

PizzaDAO, the decentralized blockchain project that aims to link pizza lovers around the world with the technological possibilities of Web3, is celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day on Sunday in traditional fashion.

Hanyecz's pizza purchase was a big deal because no mainstream retailers accepted bitcoin as a form of payment at the time. He couldn't buy pizza directly with bitcoin, so he traded his 10,000 bitcoins(Opens in a new tab) to another user in exchange for the two pizzas.

In the year or so following Bitcoin's launch, it didn't really have a solid value, as it had never actually been used to buy anything. Without some real-world comparison, Bitcoin's value was generally negotiated among sellers within the Bitcoin forum, which the mysterious Nakamoto also launched.

But this all changed on May 22, 2010, when a man named Laszlo Hanyecz made history. On this day, Hanyecz, an early crypto enthusiast, decided that he wanted to try and buy two pizzas using nothing but the Bitcoin he owned. Today, one Bitcoin would buy you enough pizzas to fill a house, but things were very different back then.

So, Hanyecz hopped on the forum Bitcointalk and announced that he wanted to spend 10,000 BTC on two pizzas. Today, 10,000 BTC is worth over $300 million. In May 2010, it was worth around $40. Hanyecz stated that he wanted to buy two large pizzas and have them delivered to his home. He even specified the kind of toppings he preferred.

The Bitcoin market is witnessing an epic meltdown right now, as its value has tumbled from a peak of over $60,000 to less than half of that in just over six months. Reddit threads are buzzing with chatter over the future of Bitcoin, while Twitter is busy roasting crypto evangelists over the crash. But there's hardly any name that symbolizes Bitcoin-related loss more than Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer and early Bitcoin miner better known as "the Bitcoin pizza guy" who spent 10,000 bitcoin on a couple of Papa John's cheese-loaded calorie bomb delicacies.

Sturdivant, who was simply referred to as the alias "jercos" on the BitcoinTalk community forum, was a 19-year-old student when he came across the unusual request. Sturdivant himself doesn't appear on the forum chat, but he told Bitcoin Who's Who that the conversation with Hanyecz happened on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). He added that the bitcoin he received in exchange for the delivery of two pizzas was later used to finance his U.S. travel plans.

At the same time, Sturdivant modestly noted that he "can't claim any responsibility for bitcoin's success." And despite the ills associated with Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, Sturdivant said he believed the cryptocurrency would one day be a positive force for our global society, "empowering individuals and companies alike to handle local and international trade in a fair and traceable manner, and that's exactly what I see it bringing to the future, as a component in an era of economic freedom." 041b061a72