Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated annually on May 22nd. Today Bitcoin blockchain recorded its first-ever real-world transaction, demonstrating BTC’s future potential.
Laszlo Hanyecz, a Bitcoin contributor bought two pepperoni pizzas by transferring $10K Bitcoins to Jeremy Sturdivant, a 19-year-old college student.
After more than a decade, when Bitcoin is the most valuable cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated as a major milestone in this journey. Today we are sharing 5 interesting facts about Bitcoin Pizza that you might not know about it yet!
On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz created history by buying two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins. But, the transaction was not conducted using Bitcoin directly. Yes, you read it right, 10 years back there was no pizza outlet in the world that accepted Bitcoin as payment.
Instead, Laszlo posted about selling its 10K Bitcoins in exchange for 2 large-size pepperoni pizzas. This offer was later accepted by Jeremey who bought 2 pizzas for Lazlo. So pizzas were actually bought from a Papa John’s outlet in Florida using traditional fiat currency which were later exchanged with 10 Bitcoins.
At the time of the transaction, the value of 10,000 Bitcoins was relatively insignificant. As per some of the Bitcoin OGs, 10K BTC did not worth more than $25 back then. However, considering the astronomical rise in Bitcoin's value over the years, those two pizzas would be worth an astounding amount today.
As per the current market price, the value of those Bitcoins would have been over $268 million USD. This might be the costliest thing one can eat on this planet!
The Bitcoin Pizza purchase was not simply a craving for pizza; it was a deliberate effort by Laszlo to showcase that Bitcoin had real-world value and could be used for transactions. That was the time when Bitcoin was fairly new and limited to the closed circles of Bitcoin holders. There were limited use cases and almost close to no online vendors used to accept Bitcoins.
This transaction was significant in terms of Bitcoin usability, showcasing Bitcoin’s future potential.
Despite parting with a significant amount of Bitcoins, Laszlo remained an active member of the Bitcoin community. He continued to work on Bitcoin-related projects and made valuable contributions, demonstrating his dedication and belief in the cryptocurrency's future.
In an interview with Anderson Cooper in 2019, Laszlo said that he does not regret spending 10K Bitcoins on Pizzas. He said, “I think that it's great that I got to be part of the early history of Bitcoin”. Laszlo said that he later on ported Bitcoin to macOS and fixed multiple bugs in Bitcoin code.
“I've always kind of just wanted people to use Bitcoin and buying the pizza was one way to do that.” - Laszlo Hanyecz
Jeremy Sturdivant, the 19-year-old Bitcoin Pizza trader from Florida never thought of Bitcoin as a serious investment option. When Laszlo was on the spending end of this whopping pizza transaction, Jeremy was the one who got 10K BTC right into his wallet.
Unfortunately, Jeremy could not reap the peak benefits of the BTC spike in 2017 and spent all of them to fund his long trip across the country.
‘If I had treated it as an investment, I might have held on a bit longer.’ Jeremy said.
Bitcoin Pizza Day has a significant place in the history of blockchain technology and will always remain in the heart of those who have witnessed the unforeseen spike of Bitcoin. This enabled Bitcoin to be treated as a legitimate currency of exchange and laid the foundation of decentralized currencies all around the world.
Also, Read - Newly Discovered Mail Challenges XRP's Security Status in Ripple vs. SEC Battle
