Bitcoin Pizza Day: Celebrating the $500 Million Pizza Order
Ayelen Osorio
Community + Content Marketing
The Story of Bitcoin Pizza Day
In 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida, was mining tens of thousands of bitcoin. The problem was he had nowhere to spend them. Fortunately, he was part of a Bitcoin Talk Forum started by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of bitcoin.
One day, on May 22, 2010, Laszlo asked if anyone in the forum was willing to deliver 2 large Papa John pizzas to his home in exchange for 10,000 bitcoin. Someone agreed to deliver him the pizzas and with a few clicks the pizzas were on their way (see images of the pizzas).
At that time, bitcoin was a year old. The 10,000 bitcoin Laszlo spent were worth about $25 USD. Today, those 10,000 bitcoin are worth around $570 million USD! Much to the surprise of many people, Laszlo has no regrets about spending a generous amount of bitcoin on pizzas.
“It was a really interesting system but there was no one using it and so if no one’s using it it doesn’t matter if I have it all. I was trying to spread it around and get people interested. I didn’t really think it would be so valuable so quickly.” – Laszlo Hanyecz (source)
Since then, May 22 has been named “Bitcoin Pizza Day” as it marks the day the first known bitcoin purchase was made. Although bitcoin has gone through many ups and down since, today we celebrate the historic achievement of Laszlo in propelling bitcoin forward despite all the odds.
And we raise our glasses to what the next 10 years will bring!
2021: Where is Bitcoin Now?
Since the fateful day Laszlo bought pizzas with bitcoin, bitcoin has proven to be the best performing asset of the decade and today its price sits around $69,000 CAD / $57,000 USD. In the span of (just) over a decade, individuals, corporations and institutions alike have accepted bitcoin as a store of value.
Is that something we can say about other assets? Not quite sure.
Take a look below at just a few examples of the bitcoin adoption we’re seeing today.
Corporations are putting bitcoin in their balance sheets
- According to their Q1 filing with the SEC, Tesla revealed it held $2.48 billion worth of bitcoin in its balance sheet as of March 31 (source).
- MicroStrategy purchased a total of $2.1 billion dollars of bitcoin in its balance sheet (source).
- Game publisher company, Nexon, purchased $100 million worth of bitcoin (source).
Crypto payments are coming faster than we think
- VISA’s CEO, Al Kelly, said crypto “is a space we are leaning into in a very, very big way” (source).
- Mastercard announced earlier this year “We are preparing right now for the future of crypto and payments, announcing that this year Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network” (source).
- eBay CEO, Jamie Lannone, said they were considering accepting bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for payments (source).
Local municipalities in the U.S. are thinking about putting bitcoin into their city’s treasury
- Miami mayor (Francis Suarez), Colorado Governor (Jared Polis), Wyoming Senator Lummis are all pro-bitcoin. These politicians can help pass bitcoin-friendly legislation and use their city budgets or state treasuries to purchase bitcoin – like the City of Miami is considering doing. (source)
To quote Laszlo Hanyecz,“Wow we really did it, and it stuck and it’s not over.” (source)
It’s Never Too Late to Buy Bitcoin
Perhaps the biggest misconception is that at the current price, many people feel they are too late to buy. However it’s not true.
Consider that the Winklevoss Twins (entrepreneurs and investors) predict the price of one bitcoin to reach $500,000 (source) in the future, while PlanB (a Dutch institutional investor) predicts it to reach $1 million (source). With that in mind, a bitcoin at its current price would seem like a bargain, wouldn’t it?
Plus, consider that the “too late” mindset is toxic, not just for your bitcoin investments but for all your investments. It’s never too late to start saving, or investing, or planning for retirement, or working on a dream. It’s never too late for any of that or to buy bitcoin. Remember that.
“The problem with bitcoin is you can never buy at a good price. Why? Bitcoin keeps being the best-performing asset each year, and is now the best performing asset of the decade. Think about that. This is the superpower of bitcoin. It doesn’t matter when you buy it. What matters is that you do eventually.” – Tim Denning, ex-banker turned bitcoiner
We’ll probably continue to see institutions buying more bitcoin throughout this year. Never before have we seen bitcoin dominating the financial industries, from corporations, institutions and banks who are either buying, selling, or allowing their customers to access bitcoin.
If you are ready to join the big players and buy bitcoin, consider buying at Netcoins.ca. You’ll get started in just a few minutes. You can fund your account with e-transfers, online billing and bank wires – oh and did we mention funding is free? It’s really never been easier to buy bitcoin than with blog.netcoins.com
With all that said, we raise our glasses to bitcoin. Here’s to what the next decade will bring.
Happy bitcoin pizza day!
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