Bitcoin Pizza
Web3 / crypto history
The Bitcoin Pizza refers to the famous first known commercial transaction using Bitcoin, which occurred on May 22, 2010, when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC to purchase two Papa John's pizzas. At the time of the transaction, those bitcoins were worth approximately thirty dollars, making it an unremarkable purchase. However, this transaction has become historically significant in crypto culture as a milestone demonstrating Bitcoin's use as a medium of exchange. Today, those 10,000 bitcoins would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, making this transaction a poignant symbol of Bitcoin's explosive value appreciation and the opportunity cost faced by early adopters. Example: Laszlo Hanyecz's 2010 transaction to programmer Jeremy Sturdivant, who arranged the pizza delivery in exchange for the Bitcoin payment, is commemorated annually in the crypto community on May 22nd as "Bitcoin Pizza Day." Why it matters for crypto history: Bitcoin Pizza demonstrates Bitcoin's earliest real-world commercial use case and serves as a humbling reminder of cryptocurrency's volatile price history and the long-term value potential investors who sold early may have missed.
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