The Bitcoin Pizza

The Bitcoin Pizza story is one of the most iconic anecdotes in cryptocurrency history, marking the first known real-world transaction using Bitcoin. Here's how it unfolded:

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida and an early Bitcoin miner, took to the BitcoinTalk forum to make a request. He offered to pay 10,000 Bitcoins to anyone who would purchase and deliver two Papa John's pizzas to his house. At the time, this amount of Bitcoin was equivalent to about $41. Hanyecz's post read, "I'll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day."

After a few days without response, on May 22, 19-year-old Jeremy Sturdivant from the UK, known by the username "Jercos," took up the offer. He bought the pizzas for Hanyecz, which were delivered from a Papa John's in Jacksonville, Florida. This transaction is widely recognized as the first time Bitcoin was used to buy physical goods, demonstrating its potential as a medium of exchange.

Since then, the value of those 10,000 Bitcoins has skyrocketed. At Bitcoin's peak price of around $68,990 in November 2021, those pizzas would have been worth approximately $690 million, illustrating the dramatic appreciation of Bitcoin's value over time. Despite this, Hanyecz has publicly stated he has no regrets about the transaction, emphasizing that at the time, Bitcoin had no significant value, and the act of buying pizza was an experiment to see if Bitcoin could function as a currency.

This event is commemorated annually as "Bitcoin Pizza Day" on May 22, where the cryptocurrency community celebrates this pivotal moment in Bitcoin's history. The story has become a symbol of Bitcoin's early days and its evolution from a theoretical concept to a tangible financial asset. Various events, including pizza parties and discounts for using Bitcoin, are often held worldwide to mark the occasion.