Key Takeaways

• Bitcoin Pizza Day is a day to celebrate the first time someone used Bitcoin (BTC) to buy something in the real world.

• Every year on May 22nd, people mark this historic event.

• In 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyeczhe decided to use Bitcoin to purchase two large pizzas for 10,000 BTC.

One of the coolest stories from Bitcoin’s 15-year history is the tale of the 10,000 BTC pizza.

Back in 2010, Bitcoin was far from the gigantic trillion-dollar cryptocurrency it currently is. It was worth basically nothing, and the early community’s biggest challenge was proving that it would be acceptable as a form of payment.

Laszlo Hanyecz

Enter Laszlo Hanyecz, an early Bitcoin supporter from Florida.

Hungry for some pizzas, Laszlo wrote a thread on the legendary Bitcoin Forum and asked if anyone would buy him a couple of pizzas in exchange for 10,000 BTC.

At the time, those 10,000 Bitcoins were worth about $40 in total, so it was a pretty good trade, even for those days.

Of course, in 2024, that’s over $500 million worth of Bitcoins, so it sounds ridiculous that people were not immediately jumping at the chance.

But it took Laszlo nearly three days to find someone willing to exchange a few pizzas for Bitcoins. And that person was a 19-year-old British student named Jeremy Sturdivant.

Bitcoin Pizza Day Celebration

15 years later, we celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day as the first example of a commercial transaction using the world’s largest crypto. It is also a great excuse to enjoy delicious pizzas with friends and family.

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day, everyone!