[2018-05-22] Bitcoin Pizza Day: How a Pizza Worth $40M Shows the Cryptocurrency

[Terraformer]

On 17 May, 2010, a computer programmer from Florida set out to prove that bitcoin could be used as a real-world currency. At the time, one unit of the cryptocurrency was only worth $0.008, so Laszlo Hanyecz proposed buying two pizzas for what would today be an extraordinary sum of bitcoins.

“I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas,” Mr Hanyecz said on a bitcoin forum. “Maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later.”

He signed off the post: “If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.”

Most members of the forum were interested in the experiment but some saw it as a bid to get a free meal from a technology that was unknown beyond a small subset of free market libertarians and so-called cypher-punks.

“Good luck on getting your free pizza,” one user commented, to which Mr Hanyecz replied: “I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in bitcoins.”

Five days later Mr Hanyecz posted a picture of two pizzas to the same forum, alongside a comment saying he had successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins to acquire them.

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins – the equivalent of $82 million at today's prices (Lazlo Hanyecz)

Within a couple of months the price of bitcoin had risen 10-fold, forcing the computer programmer to rescind an open offer to exchange bitcoins for pizza.

Continue reading >> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bitcoin-pizza-day-cryptocurrency-value-price-exchange-rate-papa-john-a8362941.html

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[Guvn0r]

Just adding a bit of info to ponder upon  

On 2017/12/16 .. 1 BTC = $ 20089.00

So these pizzas are worth $ 20,08,90,000.00  

[Searing]

I ran a big game server back in the day, so in Jan of 2009 I took it all down ...like 6 towers of CPU power, with the other machines

I had, call it 10 towers of CPU available for BTC mining....alas, did not find out about BTC until 2013

Worse yet, I had a buddy who worked for NASA, who passed before 2009 and caught up with all his buddies at NASA

at one time, by chance, on whale talk chat 2 plus years ago, and they are all BTC Billionaires because they got in right away...

Ack!

alas, no one phoned till 2013...

As to the 10,000 for the Pizza, I wish I'd have been in the loop then.

So anyway, perfectly positioned to be 'the pizza guy' who did this...but alas, no one phone until 2013...

(my buddy Qazz would have loved this crypto stuff big time...)

brad

[hatshepsut93]

I think a lot of people who are into BTC for at least a few years have their own Pizza Days, for example I''ve used my early Bitcoin earning to buy a PC, and recently those coins were worth enough to buy me a small apartment in my city. But there's no point to regret our spendings, because no one could have known the future, and the past can't be changed.. Instead it's better to focus on the future and perhaps be more conservative with spendings that involve BTC - there are some people who choose to live very frugal lives despite their BTC gains, because they expect to get even more. Maybe they will become billionaires in the future, while those who buy Lambo's today will regret it later.

[vlad230]

I ran a big game server back in the day, so in Jan of 2009 I took it all down ...like 6 towers of CPU power, with the other machines
I had, call it 10 towers of CPU available for BTC mining....alas, did not find out about BTC until 2013
....
Ack!
alas, no one phoned till 2013...
As to the 10,000 for the Pizza, I wish I'd have been in the loop then.
...

Indeed this also baffles me, Brad... I also had some servers at that time but was mainly interested in software development and didn't hear about BTC until 2013 but still was skeptical about it...

BTW, I also made a post about the BTC Pizza day in the Bitcoin Discussion forum, did not see this one, but found some interesting facts about it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4143199.0

[Harlot]

Using Bitcoin on its early days as a cryptocurrency is not a dumb thing to do, it was in the first place its intended purpose. We are just like laughing it out thinking what they did is dumb as the current value right now is way more than the value it has before. People who have spent Bitcoin, even people who have spent BTC way back at 1,000$ are experiencing a moment of regret now. Remember hindsight is always 20/20 we don't really know what the future prices of Bitcoin will be. People who are spending BTC right now can experience regret if BTC goes up to 50,000$, just my two cents people.

[richardsNY]

But there's no point to regret our spendings, because no one could have known the future, and the past can't be changed..

Correct, but I found something that helps me in getting back the Bitcoins that I spent. It doesn't happen very often that I spend my coins, but when I do, I make sure that after everything I bought with Bitcoin, I use fiat in my bank account to buy the exact amount in Bitcoin back that I spent. This way you don't ever have to regret spending your coins, and for me it actually works. Sure, people can choose to stick with fiat when it comes to their purchases, everyone is free to do that, but in some cases it's more convenient to use Bitcoin (also offers some privacy in case it's a digital purchase), and an additional benefit is that we contribute to Bitcoin's ecosystem and allow coins to circulate.

[stomachgrowls]

Ive been wondering on what are the things on the mind of that Pizza guy! For sure he do made the biggest mistake on his entire life specially when he saw that bitcoin did able to reach ou 20k usd each but well he do made a history on here. Past is past and cant be reverted and should moved on and also comes to my mind if he do able to accumulate 10k bitcoin into those times then he might still up some coins in his stashes.Unless if he do buy even more pizza with that amount. 

[sandor111]

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp sponsored Bitcoin Pizza Day event in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Event was organized as meetup for members of Bitcoin Association Slovenia. They even ordered huge pizza with BTC symbol, check photos here: https://www.facebook.com/Bitstamp/posts/1661466907303902