Tuesday, May 22 marks the eighth anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, which is in commemoration of the first time that a real-world transaction was made using bitcoin.
The day is an important one that helped to bring forth mainstream bitcoin adoption. On May 22, 2010, Florida based programmer and one of the first cryptocurrency adopters Laszlo Hanyecz paid someone 10,000 bitcoins
to order him two pizzas from his local Papa John’s restaurant.
This was the first time time that the cryptocurrency was used in a real-world transaction as far as anyone knowns, creating what is now known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. The value of those 10,000 bitcoins nowadays is close to $84 million.
“It wasn’t like bitcoins had any value back then, so the idea of trading them for a pizza was incredibly cool,” Hanyecz famously said in a 2013 interview with The New York Times. “No one knew it was going to get so big.”
Hanyecz also christened the nascent Lightning Network (LN) with a similar purchase later on, but this time around it cost him only 0.00649 BTC (~$53). You could celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day today by going to a restaurant that accepts bitcoin directly as there are plenty of places around the country that now accept the digital coin as a form of payment.
Have a great Bitcoin Pizza Day!
