Bitcoin Pizza day 22nd May
Bitcoin Pizza day is here and this offers a great opportunity to see how far we have come in 9 years. Tonight I will be attending a Pizza night with a large group of Bitcoin enthusiasts. I fully expect some heated debate as the different communities within Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV will all be eating and drinking together. Dangerous!
On this day we celebrate what is thought to be the first real-world use of Bitcoin. This happened when Laszlo Hanyecz posted this message on Bitcointalk,
I’ll pay 10,000 Bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I’m aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for Bitcoins where I don’t have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a ‘breakfast platter’ at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you’re happy!
I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc.. just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that. I also like regular cheese pizzas which may be cheaper to prepare or otherwise acquire.
If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.”
We can confirm that Laszlo is alive and well. He was on 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper this week and seems to be mentally stable after spending what is now 80 Million dollars on two pizzas. The transaction went through this day 9 day years ago.
So who got the Bitcoin and what did they do with it?
Laszlo completed the transaction on 22 May 2010.
“I just want to report that I successfully traded 10,000 Bitcoins for pizza.”
He traded 10,000 bitcoins with Jeremy Sturdivant (jercos), a then 18 years old. Jercos has said
“Bitcoin as a currency is meant to be spent. Those 10,000 BTC made it back into the economy fairly quickly, around the time they were worth some $400. A ~10x ROI from simply trading in a different currency is quite good, even if that factor could have been higher had I held on to said currency longer………… Notably, the “humble bundles” and the attached store accepting Bitcoins significantly bolstered my video game library.”
Below are the pictures of the Pizza purchased.
Source: Heliacal
The Transaction
The actual transaction took place on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
The transaction is recorded on Blockchain.info
Sender Address: 1XPTgDRhN8RFnzniWCddobD9iKZatrvH4 (Laszlo)
Receiver Address: 17SkEw2md5avVNyYgj6RiXuQKNwkXaxFyQ (Jercos)
Buying Pizza with Bitcoin today
This is a very big day for people in Bitcoin communities. I fully expect some fireworks tonight as passions are high and this day of all days is where the debate will rage. The Bitcoin Cash crowd will no doubt feel vindicated as they pay for their Pizzas faster than those paying with Bitcoin. No doubt the Bitcoin crowd will be singing the praises of the Lightning network. Lightning is a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. It enables near-instant payments between two parties. While Dominos Pizza has a lightning payment node in place it is still a way of from being set up for the general public usage, although this is growing fast. Lightning requires two parties setting up a ledger entry on the blockchain to transact. Once done the transaction takes place off-chain and really is lightning fast. We will cover Lightning in detail later this week.
I look forward to tonights dinner which is being attended by some very big people in the Bitcoin and Crypto space and hopefully, I can get a few on camera for our upcoming series ‘The Real Cryptos’ Sprinkle members of the growing Bitcoin SV community in the mix and we have the making of a great night. If you missed it, the price of Bitcoin SV doubled yesterday! 2019 is really heating up so make sure you subscribe to this site and our youtube channel.
Today is indeed a special day for anyone involved with Bitcoin and Crypto. It is a day to reflect on how far we have come in 9 years. It is amazing and just imagine what we can do in the next 9 years. My experience over the last two years, however, has been one of extensive conflict and division within the different communities. I hope we see this change and communities start to support each other a bit more. Wishful thinking? I will keep you posted. Happy Pizza day everyone.
