Firm Insights

On this day in 2010, the first reported purchase of a consumer product using Bitcoin took place.  Organized on Bitcointalk forum, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida, traded a British man 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John’s pizzas. The market value of the Papa John’s pizza at the time was $25.

At 2010’s value, those two pizzas cost Mr. Hanyecz around $41.

At today’s value, those two pizzas cost Mr. Hanyecz more than $80 million.

From CoinDesk: “Though limited to 16 slices of pizza, the era of bitcoin-powered commerce had begun – not to mention the silent wincing over spending millions of dollars for two pizzas.”

“Bitcoin Pizza Day”, celebrated annually on May 22^nd, is not so much about the number of bitcoins spent or the product involved. It is a celebration of the adoption of cryptocurrency and the transaction that had taken place. Digital currency and the blockchain have come a long way since Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned a financial system based on a technology called blockchain in 2008.  Since then, Bitcoin has gained worldwide attention and penetrated trading and investment firms across Wall Street.

From Ledger: “Bitcoin was just a fun hobby project for me 8 years ago,” said Laszlo. “When I paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas I had no idea that Bitcoin would eventually become as popular as it is today, with people using it for real world transactions every day.”

Current Bitcoin Price Index of Today’s Value