Today, May 22nd is the (unofficial) “national” bitcoin pizza day. It was on this day 8 years ago that Laszlo Hanyecz became the first recorded person to ever buy a pizza using bitcoin. In fact, Laszlo may have made the first consumer purchase ever using bitcoins. Other then the day that the very first bitcoin was ever minted, bitcoin pizza day may be the second most famous day in the bitcoin world.
The pizza was from a Pappa Johns pizza in Jacksonville Florida and Laszlo said it was delicious. The price to purchase the pizza was 10,000 bitcoins. At the time a bitcoin was worth about 0.3 US cents and the cost of those two pizzas was about 30 $USD. Also at that time there was no way to directly purchase anything with bitcoin. Laszlo had to find someone willing to exchange bitcoin for $USD and he found that person on the internet. Laszlo sent his new friend 10,000 bitcoin and the friend purchased the pizzas at Papa Johns.
And that is how the first pizza was ever purchased using bitcoin.
At today’s bitcoin exchange rate that means that those pizzas today would be worth over 80 million dollars. Laszlo, when interviewed years later, maintained that he had no regrets due to spending those 10,000 bitcoins “just” for a pizza. In 2010 bitcoin was just a little hobby to play with and so there was no concept of what the future could be. Laszlo was a software programmer and he had mined the coins himself on his own computer, so practically giving them away was easy. In fact, at the time, he felt like he was basically getting free pizza, and who doesn’t like that?
Even to this day, Laszlo says he is very proud to be the first person on the planet to actually use bitcoin and he still has a passion and desire to see bitcoin become one of the worlds main monetary systems.
Do you plan to celebrate bitcoin pizza day next year?
