Bitcoin Pizza
What Is Bitcoin Pizza?
Bitcoin Pizza refers to the first known purchase of physical goods using
bitcoin.
On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, the programmer who would go on to become famous for being the man who bought pizza with bitcoin, made a post on a Bitcoin forum called
Bitcointalk. He was looking to make a deal with someone who would take bitcoin as payment for pizza. Hanyecz wrote:
âIâll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. Like maybe 2 large ones so i have some left over for the next day..â
At the time, 10,000 BTC was equivalent to approximately 41 USD, meaning each bitcoin was worth about 0.0041 USD. Hanyeczâs offer was taken up by another Bitcointalk user, who paid 25 USD for the two pizzas.
Hanyecz acquired the coins by
mining on his laptop. Back then, consumer-grade hardware was powerful enough to effectively mine bitcoins.
In 2018, Hanyecz used the
Bitcoin Lightning Network to buy two pizzas once again, but only spent 0.00649 BTC this time round.
Hanyecz has said in interviews that he doesn't regret spending 10,000 BTC on two pizzas. At the time, Bitcoin was an obscure Internet phenomenon followed by only a handful of enthusiasts. Using
cryptocurrency to buy a physical good seemed more far-fetched than it does today.
Bitcoin Pizza Day
Thanks to this fabled transaction, May 22 is now known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. It's considered a historic moment in the history of bitcoin, marking the first-ever documented time a cryptocurrency was used as a medium of exchange for a real-world purchase.
Today, the 10,000 bitcoins used to purchase those two pizzas would be worth millions of dollars, making it a remarkable example of the early days of bitcoin. The term "bitcoin pizza" has even become synonymous with using a cryptocurrency for a seemingly mundane purchase.