Exactly today, 8 years ago, the historical transaction involving bitcoin took place - 2 pizzas were exchanged for 10,000 bitcoin. It may not be big deal for some, but the first ever transaction done using bitcoin will always be remembered in history and given that today is the anniversary, as few words need to be said about it.

A lot of people think that it was a stupid thing because the same 10k bitcoins would have been worth US$ 82 million. However, given that bitcoin wasn't worth 8.2k then and that there was no way to know what bitcoin may have been worth 8 years from then, it probably was a sensible transaction to prove that bitcoin can be used as money. More importantly, it has given the buyer, Laszlo Hanyecz and to an extent Jeremy Sturdivant - the guy with whom he made the deal, a permanent place in Bitcoin history, something probably worth whatever money he lost, assuming he bought more bitcoin later. I think what he has achieved is truly priceless.

The story goes like this -

Laszlo Hanyecz posted the following on a forum back in 2010 -

"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 left over 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."

On 22 May 2010, Laszlo made a deal with Jeremy Sturdivant in the first known purchase of tangible items with bitcoin, also celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

British newspaper published a piece on this anniversary and spoke to Laszlo Hanyecz. Here are some notes from that interview -

“I wasn’t sure if anybody would actually take it.”

“I thought I’d offer a big sum because most people, if they were offering trades at all, would trade web codes for one bitcoin, real small stuff. I had a bunch of it so I offered 10,000 BTC. I ordered it from Jercos and he took care of subcontracting it out.”

As bitcoin surged in price, the same two Papa John’s pizzas were worth > $175m in Dec 2017 and nearly half that now. Hanyecz remains philosophical.

“I try not to think about it.”

“First off it’s no use, and second, it would just drive me crazy thinking like that.”

“I don’t think it was a mistake. It’s like if you could go back in time and buy Google stocks when they were $1 or something.”

“To me, the day that I was able to buy food with bitcoin, it made it real to me.”

“I had just traded this internet currency for real world goods. Today there’s millions of people trading things for bitcoin every day.”

“I mined that bitcoin and at the time it was like I was getting free food. The only thing I had really invested in it was my
time. I was doing this as a hobby, I was having fun working on this code, writing code that created bitcoin.”

“At the time it wasn’t worth much and I feel like if I hadn’t done it, someone else would have. I wouldn’t have spent $100m on pizza, right? But if I hadn’t done that, maybe it wouldn’t have become popular.”

“I spent all that bitcoin I had early on, because who wouldn’t right?”

“I had a bunch of it, I bought pizza and various other things, and just gave it away and what not.”

“I’m just really happy that I got to participate and contribute to the early success of bitcoin. It’s great that I get to be part
of something so important. I think few people had an idea it would get as valuable as it has.”

Hanyecz repeated a similar pizza trade by purchasing some more pizza using the Lightning Network recently. He wants bitcoin to be an everyday payment method instead of something that “people just buy to try and get rich”.

Jercos also spoke to The Telegraph and he is also “proud” to be a part of bitcoin's success -

“The bitcoin went into a wallet that was later liquidated to cover expenses while travelling the US with my girlfriend at the time.”

“If you were to treat it like an investment, the net profit was in excess of 1000%... which is to say it didn't make me particularly rich.

“If I had treated it as an investment, I might have held on a bit longer, but I certainly would have bailed out with a lesser
value, perhaps the celebrated $1=1BTC mark? With perfect knowledge of the future I would have acted differently, but that could be said of anyone.”

“It seemed fair for both parties, low-risk, and well, who doesn't like some kind of pizza? 10,000 BTC was perhaps possible even after fees and whatnot to convert back into the original cost, and I didn't see bitcoin as likely to completely collapse, though I had no idea how huge it would become.”

Sturdivant says the buying power of the currency “absolutely took me by surprise”.

“At the time of the famous pizza I would never have thought that the same number of bitcoin would have a purchasing power on the order of real estate, or that major companies would accept bitcoin automatically for day-to-day transactions, and that matters to me more than being worth a particular number of GBP, EUR, or USD.”

“I believe the overall power of cryptocurrency is for good, empowering individuals and companies alike to handle local and international trade in a fair and traceable manner, and that's exactly what I see it bringing to the future, as a component in an era of economic freedom”.

“While I can't claim any responsibility for bitcoin's success, I'm proud to have played a part in something that went from an interesting concept project to a global phenomenon so quickly.”

The original story can be found here -

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/05/22/inside-story-behind-famous-2010-bitcoin-pizza-purchase-today/

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