Saying hello, and have a few questions

[barfor]

Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Laszlo, history was made that day.

[Ente]

It's great to have you back, laszlo!
Only stupid people would call you stupid.
You, sir, onehandedly started the real bitcoin economy.
It doesn't matter how many coins you had or have. You had vision, and you are part of history.

Hats off to you!

Ente

[laszlo]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could.  Other than a little bit of single digit change, I spent everything I mined.  As you all know, the difficulty rises to adjust to hashing power, so eventually the mining wasn't worth it for me.

GPU mining BTC in 2010!??

As far as I know I was the first to release a GPU miner.  I contributed the hash meter back then too, that's what the screen shot was all about.  I used to maintain the Mac OS builds but others have taken that up now.  It was a fun project and I learned all about OpenCL.  I can't find the thread on the forum anymore but you can find it in my web dir ( http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/sha256.cl ).  That was back in May 2010.  Maybe there were other people who were doing it in private too, though.  For a long time I had been looking for a reason to learn how to write a shader, and this was a great project for it.  The way I looked at it, I was helping out with an open source project, and I was making pizza with my code.

You guys will laugh now but I mined everything with an nvidia 9800 GTX+ on Mac OS (hackintosh, another scene I used to help out in).  I ended up getting 2 AMD Radeon 5970s with the bitcoins I was mining, but at the time, the OpenCL libraries from AMD and nvidia both were really buggy and I never got it to work right on more than one GPU.  The same code that would work on the nvidia on linux wouldn't work on windows and vice versa.  I was trying to make a generic OpenCL miner that everyone could run on all 3 platforms, and I spent months tweaking different kernels for each GPU, but I was also working two jobs at the time and so I never finished it.  I ended up just leaving bitcoin on the back burner for a few years, then it exploded and people started asking me about the pizza trades.  Every time the value goes up on exchanges, people email me asking me to comment on it, but really there isn't much more to tell than what I explained here.

This is the old GPU mining release I made for Mac OS, probably won't work anymore though: http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-Intel-svn-75-opencl-2010-05-10.dmg

[DaRude]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could.  Other than a little bit of single digit change, I spent everything I mined.  As you all know, the difficulty rises to adjust to hashing power, so eventually the mining wasn't worth it for me.

GPU mining BTC in 2010!??

As far as I know I was the first to release a GPU miner.  I contributed the hash meter back then too, that's what the screen shot was all about.  I used to maintain the Mac OS builds but others have taken that up now.  It was a fun project and I learned all about OpenCL.  I can't find the thread on the forum anymore but you can find it in my web dir ( http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/sha256.cl ).  That was back in May 2010.  Maybe there were other people who were doing it in private too, though.  For a long time I had been looking for a reason to learn how to write a shader, and this was a great project for it.  The way I looked at it, I was helping out with an open source project, and I was making pizza with my code.

You guys will laugh now but I mined everything with an nvidia 9800 GTX+ on Mac OS (hackintosh, another scene I used to help out in).  I ended up getting 2 AMD Radeon 5970s with the bitcoins I was mining, but at the time, the OpenCL libraries from AMD and nvidia both were really buggy and I never got it to work right on more than one GPU.  The same code that would work on the nvidia on linux wouldn't work on windows and vice versa.  I was trying to make a generic OpenCL miner that everyone could run on all 3 platforms, and I spent months tweaking different kernels for each GPU, but I was also working two jobs at the time and so I never finished it.  I ended up just leaving bitcoin on the back burner for a few years, then it exploded and people started asking me about the pizza trades.  Every time the value goes up on exchanges, people email me asking me to comment on it, but really there isn't much more to tell than what I explained here.

This is the old GPU mining release I made for Mac OS, probably won't work anymore though: http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-Intel-svn-75-opencl-2010-05-10.dmg

Your story was one of the first ones i head about when getting into BTC. As in you can buy pizza with this internet money.
Sucks to hear that you didn't leave few thousand BTC on some floppy somewhere.

[Ente]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could.  Other than a little bit of single digit change, I spent everything I mined.  As you all know, the difficulty rises to adjust to hashing power, so eventually the mining wasn't worth it for me.

GPU mining BTC in 2010!??

As far as I know I was the first to release a GPU miner.  I contributed the hash meter back then too, that's what the screen shot was all about.  I used to maintain the Mac OS builds but others have taken that up now.  It was a fun project and I learned all about OpenCL.  I can't find the thread on the forum anymore but you can find it in my web dir ( http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/sha256.cl ).  That was back in May 2010.  Maybe there were other people who were doing it in private too, though.  For a long time I had been looking for a reason to learn how to write a shader, and this was a great project for it.  The way I looked at it, I was helping out with an open source project, and I was making pizza with my code.

You guys will laugh now but I mined everything with an nvidia 9800 GTX+ on Mac OS (hackintosh, another scene I used to help out in).  I ended up getting 2 AMD Radeon 5970s with the bitcoins I was mining, but at the time, the OpenCL libraries from AMD and nvidia both were really buggy and I never got it to work right on more than one GPU.  The same code that would work on the nvidia on linux wouldn't work on windows and vice versa.  I was trying to make a generic OpenCL miner that everyone could run on all 3 platforms, and I spent months tweaking different kernels for each GPU, but I was also working two jobs at the time and so I never finished it.  I ended up just leaving bitcoin on the back burner for a few years, then it exploded and people started asking me about the pizza trades.  Every time the value goes up on exchanges, people email me asking me to comment on it, but really there isn't much more to tell than what I explained here.

This is the old GPU mining release I made for Mac OS, probably won't work anymore though: http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-Intel-svn-75-opencl-2010-05-10.dmg

Wow!
I didn't know much more from you than the infamous pizza story. It all happened way before my time.
Well, in case you don't want to be seen as kind of a tragic bitcoin hero:
you already have more credibility than, lets say, MtGox and many of the other big bitcoin businesses. I don't know what your personal interests are these days, but whatever you do - a professional exchange, a meta-protocol, hardware, a foundation - you can be sure of a *lot* of attention.
With what I already knew of you, and the little I read now, I already stand behind you fully. In case you ever need a bunch of geeks standing behind you :-)
(I hope you don't understand this wrong. Financial success isn't the most important thing. But you sure deserve it)

Ente

[Arogo]

Laszlo you legend! Just saw the pictures for the first time. Considering the pizzas were from Papa Johns, and you shared them with your daughter, I think you should call your pizza place Papa Laszlos.

This needs to be a project on bitcoinstarter.com

For sure I'll pledge!

[SgtSpike]

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could.  Other than a little bit of single digit change, I spent everything I mined.

I've been there, done that when I first got into Bitcoin too.  Everything I made was sold or spent.  I didn't start actually saving anything long-term until 2013.

Of course, if I was a Bitcoin millionaire, I'd probably tell people the same thing (that I had very little left), so as to make myself a less interesting hack target.  KnightMB did that with his 371,000 BTC.

The mystery always remains...

[InsanityDev]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could.  Other than a little bit of single digit change, I spent everything I mined.  As you all know, the difficulty rises to adjust to hashing power, so eventually the mining wasn't worth it for me.

GPU mining BTC in 2010!??

As far as I know I was the first to release a GPU miner.  I contributed the hash meter back then too, that's what the screen shot was all about.  I used to maintain the Mac OS builds but others have taken that up now.  It was a fun project and I learned all about OpenCL.  I can't find the thread on the forum anymore but you can find it in my web dir ( http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/sha256.cl ).  That was back in May 2010.  Maybe there were other people who were doing it in private too, though.  For a long time I had been looking for a reason to learn how to write a shader, and this was a great project for it.  The way I looked at it, I was helping out with an open source project, and I was making pizza with my code.

You guys will laugh now but I mined everything with an nvidia 9800 GTX+ on Mac OS (hackintosh, another scene I used to help out in).  I ended up getting 2 AMD Radeon 5970s with the bitcoins I was mining, but at the time, the OpenCL libraries from AMD and nvidia both were really buggy and I never got it to work right on more than one GPU.  The same code that would work on the nvidia on linux wouldn't work on windows and vice versa.  I was trying to make a generic OpenCL miner that everyone could run on all 3 platforms, and I spent months tweaking different kernels for each GPU, but I was also working two jobs at the time and so I never finished it.  I ended up just leaving bitcoin on the back burner for a few years, then it exploded and people started asking me about the pizza trades.  Every time the value goes up on exchanges, people email me asking me to comment on it, but really there isn't much more to tell than what I explained here.

This is the old GPU mining release I made for Mac OS, probably won't work anymore though: http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/Bitcoin-MacOSX-Intel-svn-75-opencl-2010-05-10.dmg

great to see you back lazlo, and thanks from all those who wouldn't/couldn't or don't know to say it

do you remember who introduced you to bitcoin / how did you hear about it?

[DaRude]

Laszlo you legend! Just saw the pictures for the first time. Considering the pizzas were from Papa Johns, and you shared them with your sondaughter, I think you should call your pizza place Papa Laszlos.

This needs to be a project on bitcoinstarter.com

For sure I'll pledge!

Pics are still in the same location for anyone interested.  I didn't trade bitcoins for the child - she's my daughter, Amy.  Only the pizza was traded.

http://eclipse.heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/

Good to know that you didn't trade your child for bitcoins

[Chris_Sabian]

Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Laszlo, history was made that day.

It makes you wonder what will happen in a few years to the price.  Will bitcoin become mainstream or will it fade away as a interesting footnote in history?

[Warren]

Welcome back Laszlo. Good to see you on the forum again.

[nicopalavecino]

Lazlo I'm here to say hi and thanks!
Without you and your pizza maybe bitcoin would be in the underground forever.

Also I wanna invite you and everyone to join the biggest Bitcoin community on Google+
https://plus.google.com/communities/115591368588047305300

Thank's again!
Nico

[ShawnLeary]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

The pizza thing was a lot more popular than I thought so I made good on as many trades as I could. 

If you can recall, about how many of the trades did you end up doing?  I remember reading you posted that you were about done doing the trade and no longer honoring it later in the thread.

I live right off Gate Pkwy / Baymeadows East, so if you are still in J'ville, would love to buy you a beer sometime and thank you for your contribution.

  

[asuryan180]

This guy had 81k btc = 97 millions $ when btc was 1200 ......

[LightRider]

I only have one criticism...did you have to order them from Papa John's? Wasn't there a better pizza place in your location? I don't want to impugn your taste or anything, but Papa John's makes terrible pizza in my experience.

[Acidyo]

Hehe, didn't know that u made the first gpu miner, that is pretty amazing!

If any of you could go back in time and had the mining power to mine as much btc as you wanted to, when would you stop mining, knowing the price will end up at 1250 in 4 years? When would you have enough btc to not give a fuck anymore?

kind of an ethical question.

[tinus42]

I heard from one person who bought a house with their pizza bitcoins, indirectly, by trading it for cash first.  Apparently it was a lot of hassle with the bank due to AML and just their general distaste for currencies they don't control.  I wish I could say I did the same, but the pizza didn't appreciate the same way as the bitcoins

Why don't you do a Reddit AMA? I'm sure you would get a tonne of Bitcoin donations. And Dogecoins as well. 

[jhansen858]

We have a celebrity in our midst.  I'm kicking my self over selling half my coins.  Really sucks if you didn't hold on to some at least.

[winter]

one day at a time is the key to life
he wanted pizza that day and at that time the price was what he offered in BTC
simple things make people happy

[cfrm]

Is there any Bitcoin'er that haven't heard the pizza story? As others mentioned what he did was really important to Bitcoin in terms of PR. If it's true that lazslo really is left with nothing, then I vote for making a casual bitcoin collection to give back a little for what he's done.

If marketing ever meant a huge deal for the adoption of Bitcoin (no doubt about that),  surely the pizza story is competing for the 1st prize.

Just my 2000 bitcoins.