Celebrating 14 years of the most expensive pizzas in the world – DiarioBitcoin
By Hannah Perez
Today is a folkloric day for the bitcoiner community: 14 years have passed since the first known use of Bitcoin as a payment mechanism in the real world. It allows us to look back and feel the growth of Bitcoin.
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- Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day! The date that celebrates the first real use of Bitcoin as a transactional currency
- On this day 14 years ago, someone paid 10,000 bitcoins to buy two Papa John’s pizzas
- Today 10,000 bitcoins are worth nearly 700 million dollars
- Two legendary pizzas that are a symbol of Bitcoin’s growth over time
14 years ago, an order in Papa John’s forever changed the history of Bitcoin.
Every May 22, “Bitcoin Pizza Day” is celebrated, the first known day on which the original cryptocurrency was used to make a payment in the real world. —at least as far as we know. The event marked a before and after for Bitcoin and has been immortalized in the collective memory of the cryptocurrency industry as a kind of anniversary.
The history of Bitcoin Pizza Day dates back to May 2010, when American programmer Laszlo Hanyecz went to a remote Bitcoin forum. Internetcalled Bitcointalk.orgwith a simple request: 10,000 bitcoins (BTC) in exchange for a couple of pizzas.
Hanyecz, who was also one of the pioneer miners of Bitcoin, was willing to pay the equivalent of the cost of two pizzas in the cryptocurrency to anyone who could fulfill his request. Evidently, no restaurant or establishment yet accepted cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, so their request was somewhat unusual.
As one of the network’s first miners, Hanyecz had no shortage of bitcoins. Let us remember that, in its beginnings, the mining reward for discovering a new block of Bitcoin It was 50 BTC, and there was little competition. Furthermore, on that date, the price of the cryptocurrency was less than a few cents on the dollar.
Although at that time 10,000 BTC had an approximate cost of just over 30 dollars, today, the same amount of bitcoins is valued at around 700 million dollars. This value was even higher in March, when Bitcoin It recorded historical price highs of almost $74,000 per unit.
Eventually, a user who saw Hanyecz’s post took up the offer and agreed to accept the bitcoins in exchange for a couple of pizzas Papa John’s. The historic purchase occurred in an establishment Papa John’s in Florida that, despite not having directly received Bitcoinnow has a wooden inscription hanging on the wall to commemorate the event.
Although it took years after this for people to begin to see the potential of cryptocurrency as a transactional medium, the event became an emblem and a legend of cryptocurrency culture. Bitcoin.
Two pizzas measure the growth of Bitcoin over time
Bitcoin Pizza Day is a symbol of the value of the digital currency as a useful payment mechanism in the world, but it also serves as palpable evidence to measure the growth of Bitcoin over the years. The world’s oldest cryptocurrency has not only managed to demonstrate its usefulness as a payment mechanism, but has also demonstrated its value as a decentralized and uncensored system, allowing people to exchange value without borders or the need for intermediaries.
Alien to the inflationary model of central bank fiduciary currencies, Bitcoin It has also become an acclaimed type of “digital gold” due to its increasingly widespread use as a store of value asset. By design, Bitcoin It has a limited supply of 21 million coins, of which more than 90% have already been mined.
Bitcoin It has also continued to evolve in terms of technological capabilities, with solutions emerging in recent years to build useful solutions on the blockchain and issue assets such as NFTs and memecoins.
The flagship cryptocurrency has also carved out a niche for itself in the traditional financial industry, with traditional investment vehicles offering direct exposure to Bitcoin and large global banks such as JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley investing in them. Governments and sovereign funds around the world also invest in Bitcoin. Without a doubt a monumental change from its status as a currency strange of the Internet 14 years ago.
This 2024, on its 14th anniversary, Bitcoin receives Pizza Day with a price of around USD $70,000, a meteoric increase of around 160% since last year’s celebration and several hundred million percentage points over the last 15 years.
Article by Hannah Estefanía Pérez / DailyBitcoin
Picture of Unsplash
WARNING: This is an informative article. DiarioBitcoin is a media outlet, it does not promote, endorse or recommend any particular investment. It is worth noting that investments in cryptoassets are not regulated in some countries. They may not be suitable for retail investors as the entire amount invested could be lost. Check the laws of your country before investing.
