Happy 12th Bitcoin Pizza Day!

Those two pizzas are now worth around 5,200,000,000 TRY…

On 18 May 2010, a BitcoinTalk forum user who went by the name “Laszlo”, created a thread proclaiming that he would pay 10,000 BTC* for a couple of pizzas. He didn’t mind if they were from a restuarant or homemade as long as they were a good size. While there was some initial interest from other forum users, Laszlo would have to wait a while.

He finally announced on 22 May 2010 that he successfully bought a pair of pizzas for 10,000 BTC. This marked the first commercial Bitcoin purchase and has been celebrated as “Bitcoin Pizza Day” every year since.

The value of the two pizzas, worth around 41 USD (~64 TRY) in 2010, is roughly 5,200,000,000 TRY today.

Although this figure is shocking, it’s important to understand that Bitcoin was only recognised by a select few in 2010.

You can find the original topic on the BitcoinTalk forum here, and the photos of the pizzas shared by Laszlo Hanyecz here.

Did you know?

Laszlo Hanyecz’s desire for pizza didn’t end there. He later wrote that he’d hapily continue buying pairs of pizza for 10,000 BTC. But after his initial purchase, he ended up withdrawing his offer in August 2010, no longer able to mine 10,000 BTC a day.

About a month and a half before Hanyecz’s post, another BitcoinTalk forum named SmokeTooMuch, asked to trade 10,000 BTC for 50 USD. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a buyer!

*the 10,000 BTC figure was calculated using the BTC/TRY rate at 12:00 on 9 May 2022