On this day in 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a software developer from Florida, made history by buying two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins.
This was the very first commercial transaction conducted with the help of the original cryptocurrency.
The request to buy pizzas with the help of Bitcoin was posted by Laszlo five days prior to the actual transactions on the legendary BitcoinTalk forum.
With Bitcoin currently trading close to $70,000, these two Papa John’s pizzas would have been worth more than $700 million now. Fourteen years ago, these pizzas were worth only $41.
The value of the Bitcoins spent to purchase these pizzas is also known as the Bitcoin Pizza Index.
The community now celebrates Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22 in order to commemorate the historic transaction.
Not just pizzas
In 2019, Hanyecz sat down for an interview with journalist Anderson Cooper. He said that it would not be healthy for him to think about the Bitcoin fortune that he had spent on buying just two pizzas.
Apart from the two pizzas, Hanyecz also went on to purchase plenty of other items with the help of the original cryptocurrency.
In sum, he has spent more than 100,000 BTC on buying various items with Bitcoin. This means that he could have been one of the biggest Bitcoin whales had he kept holding the entire sum instead of conducting commercial transactions during the earliest stage of Bitcoin’s adoption.
Bitcoin has failed to gain popularity as a means of payment despite the fact that it was the original pitch of its proponents. However, it has emerged as a successful store of value, with holders expecting price appreciation.
