On May 22, 2010, Florida resident Laszlo Hanecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) for two pizzas from Papa John's, at the time the first purchase made with an experiential digital currency. It is considered. The value of these coins today would be just under $700 million.
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This story is well known as part of the “Bitcoin story” and is celebrated around the world every year. Less known are Hanyecz's other contributions to Bitcoin. Bitcoin historian (former CoinDesk editor) Pete Rizzo published a detailed thread on Wednesday about Hanietz, the first man to use Bitcoin in commercial transactions, but who appears to be a confidant of Satoshi Nakamoto. It was also a presence.
This year's Pizza Day could be seen in a new context following the publication of 120 pages worth of email correspondence between Satoshi and early Bitcoin developer Marti Marmi (also known as “Sirius”). There is also. My first purchase with Bitcoin was a pizza. Marumi wrote his first FAQ for the Bitcoin.com website, and appears to have quoted Satoshi's answers to previous inquiries. he wrote:
“Bitcoin, like all traditional paper money, has value in what it can be exchanged for.
“If the first user publicly announces that he will make pizza for anyone who gives him 100 Bitcoins, he can use Bitcoin as payment to some extent as long as people want pizza and trust his announcement. A pizza-eating hairdresser who trusts him as a friend might announce that he'll start accepting Bitcoin as payment for fancy haircuts, which would increase the value of Bitcoin and buy pizza and hair in Bitcoin. He will be able to buy cuts. If Bitcoin becomes widely accepted, he will be able to continue using the money he has saved in Bitcoin even after he retires from the pizza business.
Without reading too much into it, it's interesting, given Satoshi's analogy, that the first Bitcoin transaction for a real-world object (as opposed to a peer-to-peer exchange with fiat currency) was a pizza.
But, as Rizzo points out, Hanyec contributed much more to Bitcoin than simply proving that it can be used for actual purchases. He was also the first to translate Satoshi's code for his Apple operating system, allowing more people to run actual Bitcoin software. He was also a frequent commentator on his BitcoinTalk forum, answering questions about the software and how it was designed.
But Hanyecz and Satoshi didn't see eye to eye on everything. Hanyecz is also believed to be the first person to start mining bitcoin using a chip specially designed to run complex computer programs called a graphics processing unit (GPU), giving him an advantage over others who were running bitcoin's source code on everyday computers.
This was the beginning of what Satoshi called an “arms race” in mining that continues today (currently, Bitcoin miners are using application-specific software specifically designed for proof-of-work mining), which continues to this day. (depending on factories filled with integrated circuits). Satoshi was concerned that because the user base was so low at the time, people would lose interest in participating in decentralized networks if they had to shell out cold hard cash to buy specialized equipment. Ta.
“For GPUs, it would be premature to limit incentives to only users with high-end GPU hardware,” Satoshi wrote. “I don't mean to sound like a socialist. I don't care if wealth is concentrated, but right now it's better to give that money to 100% of people than to give it to 20%. You get growth.”
Hanietsu's post asking someone to buy dinner for his family was in response to a conversation with Satoshi, and could have been a way for Hanietsu to redistribute the stash of Bitcoin he had accumulated through the free market. There is sex. In the first question on May 18, 2010, after 3 days of no response, Hanyecz offered him 10,000 BTC for 2 pizzas (no anchovies!).
A few days later, on May 21, Hanyec revisited the post and asked about a possible price increase. Eventually, 19-year-old Jeremy “Jerkos” Sturdivant agreed and offered to be his trade partner. “He just wants to report that he successfully exchanged 10,000 Bitcoins for pizza,” Hanyec said at the time.
Hanyecz, who is still active in the bitcoin world, publicly solicited pizza exchanges and may have ended up spending roughly $3 billion worth of bitcoin at today's prices on Papa John's pies, according to Rizzo. A commemorative plaque commemorating the purchase is located in Jacksonville, Florida.
While some may regret the day they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on something so mundane, Hanyec apparently has no regrets. “Someone had to start it,” he said in a CNN interview.
But no matter how you slice it, the first Bitcoin purchase was also the most expensive pizza ever sold as Bitcoin once again hit new all-time highs.
