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 Hanyecz decided to use Bitcoin to purchase two large pizzas for 10,000 BTC.
One of the coolest stories from Bitcoin’s 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, at about $82,700 per Bitcoin on October 10, 2026 (CoinGecko), that’s about $827 million worth of Bitcoins, so it sounds ridiculous that people were not immediately jumping at the chance.
But it took Laszlo four 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
Every May 22, 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!
