May 22: The Grand Bitcoin Pizza Day

The Bitcoin Pizza Day may not be the most prominent days in the history of technology. However, it certainly is a date that reminds us about the comical beginning of the Bitcoin’s supremacy, that went on to become the super cryptocurrency that it it today. The story takes us back to 8 years ago when a user paid for his pizzas using bitcoin. This also marks as the first time cryptocurrency was used for the purchase of real-time goods.

This incident could be traced back to bitcointalk.org forum. As the story goes, a programmer by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz claimed that he had ordered two pizzas from Papa John’s Pizza in America for 10,000 BTC. Initially, Hanyecz had offered to buy two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins on the forum. This, in turn, got a lot of attention on the forum as a lot many people wanted to buy the pizza for him. However, it was Jeremy Sturdivant, a teenager nick-named Jercos who accepted the patent in Bitcoin and sent over to two pizzas from Papa John’s.

This marks the first leap of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin into the market and henceforth, May 22nd is celebrated as the Bitcoin Pizza Day every year within the Blockchain and Crypto ecosystem. It is interesting to note that in those days a Bitcoin was only 0.0041 dollar worth. This means that Hanyecz simply paid 10,000 BTCs for the pizzas. If you try making that trade today, you will find that the tables have greatly turned. In other words, the value of a single Bitcoin Pizza, i.e. $20.5 would be equal to 0.0025 Bitcoins. Whether a good deal or not, this still helps us in understanding the exponential growth of the Bitcoin in a matter of just 8 years.

Dmitriy

Having majored in Social Psychology and Economics, I worked as a team lead of a tech and fundamental analysis lab in the Applied System Analysis Research Institute. I write financial articles for various international media. I also hold the position of a Chief Analyst at RoboForex.