On this day 14 years ago, Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz (one of the first Bitcoin miners) made the first documented transaction using Bitcoin to buy two pizzas. Those Two pizzas, bought for 10,000 bitcoins in 2010, would be worth millions of dollars today. Technically, at prices these days, around 700 million dollars.
Bitcoin Pizza Day commemorates an event that changed the course of cryptocurrency history and has remained a “meme” of the crypto community worldwide. But this day does not commemorate just one anecdote. This simple act, which may seem trivial today, marked the beginning of a new era in finance and technology.
In the cryptocurrency industry, Bitcoin Pizza Day is remembered as a moment that illustrates the evolution of Bitcoin from a technical curiosity to a legitimate way to store value and transact.
“The relevance of Bitcoin Pizza Day extends beyond a simple exchange of food for digital currency. Represents a crucial milestone in the adoption of cryptocurrencies as a legitimate medium of exchange. “It showed that cryptocurrencies could have real value in everyday transactions, paving the way for their widespread acceptance around the world,” explains María Fernanda Juppet, CEO of CryptoMKT.
The origin of Bitcoin Pizza Day
Before the first Bitcoin halving in 2012, each miner received a reward of 50 Bitcoin for discovering a new block. This meant that a person only needed to mine 200 blocks to get 10,000 BTC, something that was not difficult at the time, given that there was little competition in mining. It could even be done with a mobile phone (today large machines dedicated to cryptocurrency mining are necessary)
On May 18, Hanyecz posted on a forum called Bitcointalk.org that he was looking to buy pizza, preferably two large, and pay with Bitcoin. For taking the test. He offered 10,000 Bitcoin to anyone willing to order, pick up and deliver the pizzas.. Another person pointed out that he could get $41 for that amount of Bitcoin on a certain exchange website, where the price of BTC was trading at less than half a cent per coin.
On May 21, he still had not found anyone to accept his proposal, but finally, the next day, someone appeared willing to do so, a decision that would later go down in history.
“I want to inform you that I was able to successfully exchange 10,000 bitcoins for pizza” Hanyecz announced on the forum. The pizzas were from Papa John’s, but Hanyecz had bought them from a 19-year-old teenager named Jeremy Sturdivant, known on the forum as “jercos.”
Impact on the crypto community
Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated in various ways around the world. From meetings and themed events to special promotions at pizzerias that accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. Additionally, many Bitcoin enthusiasts recreate Hanyecz’s original purchase, purchasing pizzas with Bitcoin and sharing their stories on social media.
The important thing is that the Bitcoin Pizza Day raised awareness about cryptocurrencies and their disruptive potential. Perhaps in the future they will not be worth so much to buy pizzas but rather as a store of value, or as a means of payment for much bigger things. But without a doubt that first change inspired many to investigate and participate in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
“Bitcoin Pizza Day is more than a celebration of a pizza purchase. It is a reminder of how a seemingly insignificant event can have a lasting impact on the industry, the financial world and people’s lives. This day reminds us that every small step towards the adoption of technology can pave the way for significant change in the future,” concludes Juppet.
This content has been partially prepared with artificial intelligence, under editorial criteria and does not constitute a recommendation or investment proposal. Investment contains risks. Past returns are no guarantee of future returns.
