Bitcoin History: Laszlo And The Bitcoin Pizza

"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"

What does that quote even have to do with Bitcoin anyway?

It’s about pizza, isn’t it?

Read on, readers, and discover the history of the Bitcoin Pizza, and how this seemingly innocent, uninteresting post become one of the most famous events in Bitcoin’s early history.

The Beginning

Laszlo Hanyecz was a regular contributor to the Bitcoin Talk forum, one of the earliest Bitcoin discussion groups on the internet. He joined in April 2010, describing himself as "a programmer by trade".

Contributing to several posts, he became a respected member of the community for his insight into programming.

Laszlo is known for two different, but important, developments in the Bitcoin world.

Up until he arrived, most miners had been using their computer’s CPU. But the GPU has far more hashing power, and Laszlo developed a method for miners to harness that power for the Bitcoin network. As a result, GPU mining became the standard for Bitcoin mining, at least until ASIC machines became more prominent.

Using his GPU allowed Laszlo to mine far more coins than the average person. And because the mining difficulty was much lower at the time, he was able to get a huge yield. As a result, Laszlo had a ton of bitcoins sitting around.

However, it wasn’t until May 18th, 2010, that Laszlo managed to secure his place in Bitcoin history, and for a far more ridiculous reason.

It was on that day that Laszlo posted an offer saying he was interested in buying a pizza with Bitcoin.

Why a Pizza?

Someone asked, and his response was simply "I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in bitcoins." He probably didn't put much thought into it.

Eventually, a user by the name of Jercos decided to take Laszlo up on his offer. And boy did he deliver. Two tasty, piping hot “the works” pizzas from Papa John’s. The very same pizzas pictured below.

You’re hungry now, aren’t you? Go ahead and grab something for lunch. It’s alright, I’ll wait.

How Much Did He Pay For The Pizzas?

"Great," you may be thinking, "but why should I care that some computer programmer bought pizza with Bitcoin eight years ago?"

Laszlo was offering 10,000 BTC for two pizzas.

Today, it’s painful to think about. Last December, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $19,783.06 USD. By that price, Laszlo’s pizzas were worth nearly $200 million! Yikes.

Even though Bitcoin’s price has dropped significantly since then, the pizzas are still ridiculously expensive. At the time of this writing, had Laszlo just HODLed his coins, he could have netted himself a cool $110,912,400.

Jercos clearly seems like the winner here.

But at the time, it wasn’t that outrageous. One user told Laszlo he could sell that amount of BTC for $41, but a more realistic price at the time was about $25. This means an individual bitcoin at the time was worth about a quarter of a penny.

Did Laszlo have any idea where Bitcoin was going to end up in the future? He said himself “people can say I’m stupid, but it was a great deal at the time. I don’t think anyone could have known it would take off like this.”

And he’s right. In fact, Jercos was taking a gamble himself. After all, Bitcoin wasn’t the economic wonder it is now. For all he knew, he was trading two pizzas, as well as the time it took to pick up and deliver them, for 10,000 grains of sand.

Laszlo likened it to "spending their 'real' money to buy some guy pizza in exchange for some internet Monopoly money."
While other early Bitcoin users ended up buying houses and retiring from their early investment, Laszlo never kept any of his initial coin hoard. "Other than a little bit of single digit change," he said, "I spent everything I mined."

Looking at Laszlo’s transaction history, it’s clear the guy had a ton of bitcoin pass through his wallet. 81,432.09040106 BTC, to be exact.

If he’d held on to them…

But Laszlo seems to have a good attitude about the fortune he missed out on. In February users suggested they donate funds to him, but Laszlo responded by saying he "appreciate[s] the donations, but nobody owes me anything. I generated my share and I spent it, it was just at a time when the value was lower."

The Moral of the Story

People are interested in Bitcoin for many different reasons, but broadly speaking, they can fall into one of two camps. People either see Bitcoin as an investment, or as a currency.

Those who see it as an investment will monitor the price of Bitcoin. They’ll buy low, and sell high, and convert their earnings back into fiat currency.

Meanwhile, those who want to use it as currency will actually spend their Bitcoin. An investor will hear about this or that company embracing Bitcoin as a payment option, or watch this or that government regulation pop up, and think about how much it will increase their investment. Those who love Bitcoin for Bitcoin will be excited because it gives them one more place to spend their bitcoins.

Laszlo is clearly the latter.

He could have hoarded the stuff, like so many other early Bitcoin adopters. But if Bitcoin is to ever be taken seriously as a currency, it needs to be spent like a currency. So Laszlo, who gave away his potential life of comfort and leisure (even though he didn’t know it), is a true Bitcoin trailblazer. His initial purchases of Bitcoin showed people that yes, this thing could be used as a currency.

Today, Bitcoin is bigger than ever, and part of that is due to Laszlo’s contributions.

So thanks Laszlo, wherever you are!