Do we know about lazlo's other contributions on bitcoinnet besides buying pizza?

[Crypto Library]

First of all, Happy 13th Bitcoin Pizza Day everyone
I think most of us who know Laszlo Hanyecz probably only know him from buying pizza in exchange of Bitcoin on this day. To be honest, I didn't even know about his other contributions to the Bitcoin network until now. After reading the article on Coinalap(my local language) and Crypto Potato, I got to know about some more of his contributions. And I think that there are many new people here or many people are still not informed about this, so I opened this topic to share with you other contributions of this genius person on the bitcoin network.

Hanyecz’s Contributions to the Bitcoin Network:

• He is a computer programmer and Beyond his infamous pizza purchase, Laszlo Hanyecz was a significant contributor to the early development of Bitcoin. He played a crucial role in fixing many vulnerabilities in the network during its early stages, helping to make the protocol more secure and stable
• Another big identity of his is that he is the originator of GPU mining, Laszello   is the first person who wrote the program for GPU mining. When everyone was doing CPU mining, by sharing this GPU mining program bitcoin mining got more progress.
• Hanyecz’s pioneering work also extended to software development. He was the first person to release the Bitcoin code for Mac OS, which helped pave the way for the wide adoption of Bitcoin as a digital currency. Additionally, he played a vital role in transforming the Bitcoin mining landscape, laying the groundwork for today’s industry’s growth.

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Bitcoin’s 13th Pizza Day: Reflecting on the Transaction that Changed Crypto History

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[Wiwo]

He is a computer programmer and at the same time, one of the Bitcoin OG that took the crusade to the forefront and that could be seen in how Lazlo exposed himself and his family then by making some public contributions and awareness such as in the picture above where his family inclusive.

This is not something that most of the bitcoin dogs will be free with and at some point, everyone tries as much as possible to keep their identity private as much as possible but in Lazlo's case he never tries any of that.

[pawel7777]

Laszlo popped in on bitcointalk briefly in 2014 and share a little bit about himself. Sadly, he spent everything he mined. Someone in that thread tipped him 1 btc though, so he may still "make it" if he holds on to it.

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

[ImThour]

Great thread bud, I never knew about him anything apart from his infamous Bitcoin pizza buying on the forum.

He was the first person to release the Bitcoin code for Mac OS

This isn't a small contribution, this is integrating Bitcoin to an unsupported Operating System and the amount of vulnerabilities that could arise from it could be huge.
Kudos to this guy for doing what he did for the development of Bitcoin in the initial stage.

[Yaunfitda]

Yes, he is a developer or computer programmer, he even has correspondence with Satoshi himself.

And that is why he wanted to proved that we can used bitcoin as payment scheme, as what Satosh's original design that's why he buy that Pizza and the rest is history. With that, even if you talk to him as he was interviewed many times he didn't regret anything he did.

Another fun-fact is that he try to do it as well using LN.

Original Pizza Day Purchaser Does It Again With Bitcoin Lightning Network

[OgNasty]

Great thread bud, I never knew about him anything apart from his infamous Bitcoin pizza buying on the forum.

He was the first person to release the Bitcoin code for Mac OS

This isn't a small contribution, this is integrating Bitcoin to an unsupported Operating System and the amount of vulnerabilities that could arise from it could be huge.
Kudos to this guy for doing what he did for the development of Bitcoin in the initial stage.

I don't know if this is his only contribution, but he is listed as a contributor to Bitcoin Core's code, so I assume he's made changes to the code that we probably all utilize today.  It goes to show you that sometimes you can make history in the software industry just by ordering a pizza, even when you've contributed to one of the most successful open source projects of all time.  People like a good story. 

[Fiatless]

Great thread bud, I never knew about him anything apart from his infamous Bitcoin pizza buying on the forum.

He was the first person to release the Bitcoin code for Mac OS

This isn't a small contribution, this is integrating Bitcoin to an unsupported Operating System and the amount of vulnerabilities that could arise from it could be huge.
Kudos to this guy for doing what he did for the development of Bitcoin in the initial stage.

I don't know if this is his only contribution, but he is listed as a contributor to Bitcoin Core's code, so I assume he's made changes to the code that we probably all utilize today.  It goes to show you that sometimes you can make history in the software industry just by ordering a pizza, even when you've contributed to one of the most successful open source projects of all time.  People like a good story. 

I read an article and the writer stated that the Bitcoin community has been unfair to Laszlo Hanyecz because he is recognized only as the Bitcoin pizza man. He argues that he made a more significant contribution to bitcoin than just being the first spender. His contribution to GPU mining code that made him mine at a higher hashrate might be more impactful than just ordering a pizza with 10,000 BTC. But becoming the first person to use Bitcoin as a currency is symbolic. I have also observed that you don't choose how you will be remembered, history decides the aspect of your life to keep. He is even fortunate to be remembered yearly by the community because many contributors to the Bitcoin network are anonymous or less celebrated.

[pawel7777]

I read an article and the writer stated that the Bitcoin community has been unfair to Laszlo Hanyecz because he is recognized only as the Bitcoin pizza man. He argues that he made a more significant contribution to bitcoin than just being the first spender.

Writing a code for GPU mining (now obsolete anyway) is simply not as good of a story and doesn't capture the imagination as spending 10k BTC on pizza.
And considering that the average bitcoiner (who is no longer just a nerdy, tech-savvy guy) probably cannot name more than 2-3 developers, being recognisable within such large community is nothing to be sad about. Literally no one gets famous for writing code, other than Satoshi.

[drwhobox]

Nice piece of information about the famous pizza guy. It is interesting that he shared his family and himself publicly while every one of us around bitcoin community love to hide under our fake identity. Never heard that he is the guy behind GPU mining, if so then he probably has more bitcoins now if he keeps them. Sometimes I feel bad for him just to think that if he would not spend those bitcoin for pizza, he can be one of the bitcoin rich.

[pawel7777]

It is interesting that he shared his family and himself publicly while every one of us around bitcoin community love to hide under our fake identity.

It was not unusual for people to post under their real identities back then, when Bitcoin was essentially worthless. Bitcoin was a rather niche project and no one could predict it'll grow that big. There are many developers or prominent figures not hiding their identities, but I guess it make sense to keep a low profile when you hold a significant amounts of bitcoins.
"Luckily" for Laszlo, he spent almost all of his holdings on those pizzas, or maybe that's just a story that he made public not to drive attention of any bad guys who could pose a threat to himself and his family.

[livingfree]

Wow, I didn't know the other contributions that he'd made. Thanks OP!

Nice piece of information about the famous pizza guy. It is interesting that he shared his family and himself publicly while every one of us around bitcoin community love to hide under our fake identity.

It's because it's most likely that there's nothing to hide anymore as he's spent most of his bitcoins already from that pizza purchase. So, if there are robbers that would like to go and catch him, he'll just have to admit that he has spent it all and nothing left(?).

Never heard that he is the guy behind GPU mining, if so then he probably has more bitcoins now if he keeps them. Sometimes I feel bad for him just to think that if he would not spend those bitcoin for pizza, he can be one of the bitcoin rich.

No need to feel bad for him and forget about being regretful of these what ifs about him holding those bitcoins by now, his contributions will be forever engraved on Bitcoin's history and if it's not because of him who else is going to make that historical purchase when Bitcoin was worthless more than a decade ago and was just a project that's no one has an idea where it's going.

[panganib999]

First of all, Happy 13th Bitcoin Pizza Day everyone
I think most of us who know Laszlo Hanyecz probably only know him from buying pizza in exchange of Bitcoin on this day. To be honest, I didn't even know about his other contributions to the Bitcoin network until now. After reading the article on Coinalap(my local language) and Crypto Potato, I got to know about some more of his contributions. And I think that there are many new people here or many people are still not informed about this, so I opened this topic to share with you other contributions of this genius person on the bitcoin network.

Hanyecz’s Contributions to the Bitcoin Network:

• He is a computer programmer and Beyond his infamous pizza purchase, Laszlo Hanyecz was a significant contributor to the early development of Bitcoin. He played a crucial role in fixing many vulnerabilities in the network during its early stages, helping to make the protocol more secure and stable
• Another big identity of his is that he is the originator of GPU mining, Laszello   is the first person who wrote the program for GPU mining. When everyone was doing CPU mining, by sharing this GPU mining program bitcoin mining got more progress.
• Hanyecz’s pioneering work also extended to software development. He was the first person to release the Bitcoin code for Mac OS, which helped pave the way for the wide adoption of Bitcoin as a digital currency. Additionally, he played a vital role in transforming the Bitcoin mining landscape, laying the groundwork for today’s industry’s growth.

Information collect from
বিটকয়েন পিজা দিবস | সবচেয়ে দামী পিজা?
Bitcoin’s 13th Pizza Day: Reflecting on the Transaction that Changed Crypto History

v Kid looking at the pizza knowing fully-well that 10 years later that pizza's gonna cost 273 Million bucks lmao.

Kiddings aside I knew from the get-go that the guy is something to really respect. It's one thing to purchase something using bitcoin, but back then, this is basically what jumpstarted the bitcoin economy and the believers if you will. So if not for his purchase, no one will probably know what bitcoin is in 2010 and will probably never even going to break as much records and change as much lives as it does now. So apart from being one of the pioneers of this network and the one who basically started it all, he's also someone who deserves so much respect. That pizza right there is symbolic of the future that bitcoin will come to be 10 years from then. So shouts to him (not sure if he's still active in this forum but whatever).

[n0ne]

Maybe Laszlo Hanyecz could've known well about the development and by purpose he could've bought pizza in exchange for bitcoin. His contribution is big, he should be recognised. Not everyone were able to understand and believe in it at the early days. Just because he have understood well about the network he had developed the GPU mining when rest were doing CPU mining.

The big number of bitcoin spend on the pizza could've changed his living. He feels happy for what he have done to the bitcoin network.

[mendace]

I'm honest I wasn't aware of all this news and I thank you for sharing it, on the other hand it is only thanks to Lazlo that Bitcoin has had an important breakthrough and that we have finally been able to attribute a theoretical price to the first Bitcoin transaction. Just 13 years have passed but I'm sure not even Lazlo would have expected all of this from Bitcoin.

[pawel7777]

No need to feel bad for him and forget about being regretful of these what ifs about him holding those bitcoins by now, his contributions will be forever engraved on Bitcoin's history and if it's not because of him who else is going to make that historical purchase when Bitcoin was worthless more than a decade ago and was just a project that's no one has an idea where it's going.

Exactly. And to add, if not for people like him, who actually tried to put Bitcoin into real-life use, who knows if we would ever get to where we are now.
If everyone just held from the start, Bitcoin would probably never took off the ground and the project could end up as a bunch of guys stashing millions of worthless coins that nobody has even heard about.

[Husires]

It seems to me that Laszlo Hanyecz has become the new Musk, a lot of topics talk about him, and now we have evolved from the pizza stage to his technical expertise.

He is a computer programmer and Beyond his infamous pizza purchase, Laszlo Hanyecz was a significant contributor to the early development of Bitcoin. He played a crucial role in fixing many vulnerabilities in the network during its early stages, helping to make the protocol more secure and stable

Can you attach a link to one of these vulnerabilities that he participated in fixing? Some older developers haven't had much luck with the documentation.
It was the efforts of people in the early days that helped us in the stage we have reached now, and most of them were not motivated, but rather personal participation and self-efforts without funding, even here the strength of decentralize project appears.

[worle1bm]

Maybe Laszlo Hanyecz could've known well about the development and by purpose he could've bought pizza in exchange for bitcoin. His contribution is big, he should be recognised. Not everyone were able to understand and believe in it at the early days. Just because he have understood well about the network he had developed the GPU mining when rest were doing CPU mining.

The big number of bitcoin spend on the pizza could've changed his living. He feels happy for what he have done to the bitcoin network.

He was computer programmer among the early one's to start mining btc and this is how he was able to get that 10k bitcoins as we know the rewards were big in the start for any block found but for him he spent them on pizza but not a big deal for him as we have seen in many interviews.But he has initiated this move and also we consider it one of the most expensive trades in Bitcoin history so we should respect him and also that who helped him by offering to pay on his behalf.

[entebah]

i saw on Cointelegraph another news from Lazlo which is buying another Pizza using Bitcoin Lightning in 2018 and that time not everyone know about Bitcoin Lightning but he use it to buy it
https://cointelegraph.com/news/original-pizza-day-purchaser-does-it-again-with-bitcoin-lightning-network