May 22 is now forever known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, the holiday marking the date in 2010 when the first real-world good was bought with the first decentralized digital money.
Yet like every holiday, be it Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day, Bitcoin Pizza Day might say more about those celebrating it today than any of the actual historical facts. Indeed, there remain those who view the holiday as passé[1] or even against the values[2] of the Bitcoin community.
What remains true is that by May 2010, Bitcoin had a small, but growing economy, one where bitcoin were still mostly traded peer-to-peer and on some small exchanges.
Eager to push the frontier of Bitcoin commerce further, Laszlo Hanyecz, an early developer and miner, put out the call that he was willing and ready to pay 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, should someone be willing to take him up on the trade.
Bitcoin user Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant would agree to the terms, and two Papa John’s pies would arrive at Hanyecz’s house shortly thereafter. History was made — but some supporting facts have been lost to time.
In honor of the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, we’ve compiled a list of lesser-known facts about what’s perhaps the most famous of Bitcoin holidays.
At this year’s bitcoin price high of $63,000, the two pizzas were worth $630 million.
Though data on the early Bitcoin economy is getting hard to come by, according to Bitcoin user ender_X[3], Hanyecz could have traded his bitcoin on an exchange for U.S. dollars … about $41 to be exact. Should the figures be accurate, that puts the price per bitcoin at roughly $0.004 — or four-thousandths of a penny — at the time of sale.
While
