On May 18, 2010, American Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 $BTC on a specialized forum for blockchain enthusiasts, Bitcointalk, to anyone who would bring him two large pizzas.
In the following days, Laszlo received no offers, but then a gentleman named Jeremy Sturdivant responded to the advertisement. He chose to order two large pizzas from Papa John's pizzeria in exchange for the aforementioned amount in bitcoins.
On May 22, the deal was made, and Laszlo honestly received his two large pizzas 'without strange fish toppings'.
The payment of 10,000 $BTC for pizza delivery entered history not only because of its shortsightedness but also because it was the first commercial transaction in Bitcoin's history. Before that, no one had purchased goods or services with cryptocurrency.
How much would these two pizzas cost now?
Even at the moment of purchasing the pizzas, there were users on the forum who said that Laszlo was overpaying; they had no idea how right they were — at that time, the equivalent of the amount paid was about 40 dollars.
If we consider the exchange rate on May 16, 2025, then two large pizzas from Papa John's cost Mr. Hanyecz approximately 1 billion US dollars.
Throughout 2010, Laszlo bought pizzas for another 100,000 $BTC , or almost 10 billion dollars at today's exchange rate.
Bitcoin Pizza Day
Now, May 22 is a kind of holiday for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Beyond the joke, this day symbolizes that even if initially few take the technology seriously, this can drastically change in the future.
So, Bitcoin Pizza Day is the main holiday for so-called 'hodlers', people who believe that Bitcoin should be accumulated because it will actually replace the fiat money we are used to.
Today, it seems to us that this day is either very far away or will never come at all. Probably, that’s how Laszlo Hanyecz thought at one time.
Laszlo Hanyecz
The main character of this story has given many interviews and always says that he has no regrets.
I wanted to prepare it with pizza because for me it was free pizza. I received pizza for participating in an open-source project. Usually, hobbies can be quite expensive in terms of finances and time, but in my case, it brought me lunch.
Although Hanyecz is mainly remembered today in the context of Bitcoin Pizza Day, he actually made significant contributions to the development of the cryptocurrency industry, particularly mining, making it what we know today.
The fact is that in the early days of Bitcoin, miners mined cryptocurrency using PC processors. Nevertheless, Hanyecz was the first to make an offer.
