May 22 is Bitcoin Pizza Day and it is forever and ever one of the tastiest day for Bitcoin, the date that has become legendary for the whole cryptocurrency community. This year, just a week after the Bitcoin halving, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first payment in BTC. To join the party, let’s get a delicious slice of history!
At 2010 the 10,000 BTC was worth just $41 at the time of purchase
Once upon a time, there was a king… Whose name was Laszlo Hanyecz, who was the owner of at least 10,000 BTC. Today this sum is enough to rent a fancy kingdom but at that time such a huge amount of our favorite digital gold valued as simple $41. This “king” became the famous “Bitcoin Pizza Guy” exactly ten years ago when bought two Papa John’s or Domino’s pizzas for 10,000 BTC from the lucky guy Jeremy Sturdivant.
A few days before the transaction he made a post on BitcoinTalk that still exists, and you can read the original in the thread:
“ 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. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later. 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 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!
I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc.. just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that. I also like regular cheese pizzas which may be cheaper to prepare or otherwise acquire. If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.
Thanks, Laszlo”
Jeremy Sturdivant happened to be the person to agree and the whole community still wonders whether he really had the power of foreseeing or was just unbelievably lucky, but if he had held them for a few more years, he would have become times richer. He got the coins when each of them was valued as around $0,006 and sold them when a BTC’s price was about $400. In a while, Bitcoin started to reach its peaks.
As for the Pizza Guy, at first glance his slice didn’t look wise at all: the value of the two pizzas was $25 while he spent $41. However, it was he who initially boosted the interest in cryptocurrency and made the revolutionary payment. In 2018 he said: “I’d like to think that what I did helped. But I think if it wasn’t me, somebody else would have come along. And maybe it wouldn’t have been pizza.” And he did it again, celebrating the success of the currency with two more pizzas valued as 0.00649 BTC!
Bitcoin holidays
Do you like this holiday? Check out other Bitcoin holidays to celebrate.
- Bitcoin Birthday – January 3rd.
On this day, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block of BTC (it is also known as Block number 0), getting a reward of 50 Bitcoins. 6 days later, on 9 January 2009, the first open source bitcoin client was released. It was hosted at SourceForge. - Bitcoin Genesis Transaction Day – January 11th.
This day, the first Bitcoin transaction was sent by Satoshi Nakamoto to Hal Finney. The transaction took place in Block 170 and was a direct transfer of 10 BTC from Satoshi Nakamoto. It is also thought that Satoshi Nakamoto hasn’t spent any of this estimated 1.1 million BTC hoard. - The Billion Dollar Day – March 28th.
Bitcoin market cap surpassed $1 Billion. At the same time, the exchange rate for each individual unit of the encrypted digital currency rose above $92. The Verge reported that the milestone came as the total number of Bitcoins neared 11 million and represented a huge jump from the previous record value of $32 which had been recorded a month before.
- Bitcoin ATM Day – May 2nd.
In San Diego, the first Bitcoin ATM made its appearance. However, it is also being said that the world’s first Bitcoin ATM was launched on 29 October 2013 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The ATM allowed clients to sell or purchase Bitcoin currency at a downtown coffee shop. - Bitcoin Whitepaper Day – October 31st.
Official introduction of the Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto. Some people believe that Bitcoin’s birthday is actually the date of whitepaper release as it is a better representation of the birthday. After all, it was this day when the era of exclusive bank and state minting and distribution of cash was coming to an end. - HODL day – December 18th.
The famous typo that made its way into our language. On that day, the bitcointalk forum user GameKyuubi posted “I AM HODLING,” a very chaotic rant about his poor trading skills and the will to just hold his Bitcoin from that point on.
Laszlo waited four days to get his pizza
Coming back to Bitcoin pizzas, it wasn’t that easy to make that Bitcoin payment. Laszlo had to wait 4 days, according to the Bitcoin magazine, as people hadn’t reached out to him immediately after his initial query. He must have gotten pretty hungry by that time!
Laszlo Hanyecz. What about now?
The programmer Laszlo Hanyecz said he had no regrets about the purchase, which makes sense, as the event was revolutionary and made history. This is his Twitter with the last tweet dating 2018.
How to accept Bitcoin payments?
You can accept Bitcoin payments via API or various plugins, such as WooCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop and many others.
Pizza Party Goes On
Though the 2 pizzas happened to be the revolutionary purchase, it was not the weirdest one. To celebrate the day we’ve prepared for you a shortlist of awkward and impressive things and services you can get by making payments in bitcoin online. This is the list:
- Your own personal paradise: 13-acre piece of heavenly land to start mining there.
- Mammoth tusks to flex about.
- Bitcoin plush pillows to make your flat a bit-coin-sier.
- Goats in Somalia to make funny cryptocurrency memes with.
- The first Macintosh, but not to mine.
- Tickets to the Virgin Galactic space expedition to see what coins are popular in space.
- Celtic cross tarot reading cards to make market predictions.
- A doge sweatshirt to gift Elon Musk.
Funny, doesn’t it? Of course, the Internet has other impressive options, but we would like to remind you that nowadays you can buy nearly whatever you want in BTC. And NOWPayments is a fit solution, safe and custody-free. Just give it a try and sign up quicker than you finish your slice of pizza!