The "Bitcoin Pizza Guy," who famously bought two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins, jokingly said, "This is the best investment I've ever made."

Original Article Title: "The Man Who Spent 10,000 Bitcoins on Pizza, Laszlo: No Regrets, Feels Like Won the Internet That Day"

Original Article Author: Hill Far, Centreless

This Article was Published in March 2025

Pizza Purchased at That Time

On May 18, 2010, at 12:35 PM, a user with the ID Laszlo posted a bounty on a Bitcoin forum willing to exchange 10,000 Bitcoins for two large pizzas. The seller could either make them himself or order takeout, and in the post, he detailed his pizza topping preferences. Among the Bitcoin Talk Forum members initiated by Bitcoin's founder Satoshi Nakamoto earlier on April 16, he had joined.

In 2010, Bitcoin had just emerged, and people were still quite unfamiliar with this so-called "digital cryptocurrency" existing on the internet, let alone had a concept of transactions. Therefore, the post did not immediately receive a significant response. Only a few users expressed willingness to buy pizza for him, but the deal couldn't be closed as the person was not in the U.S.

At that time, 10,000 Bitcoins were worth around $30, which made Laszlo doubt if he had bid too low. It wasn't until four days later, on May 22, that Laszlo replied on the forum confirming that he had successfully bought the pizzas and even shared a photo of the pizzas he bought. May 22 hence became known as "Bitcoin Pizza Day."

The historic significance of this transaction is that it was the first transaction since Bitcoin's inception, signifying that Bitcoin had acquired a transactional function as a currency, rather than just being stored on the internet. Of course, this first offline Bitcoin transaction also had some experimental aspects, testing whether Bitcoin truly had the practical utility function of "money."

According to an interview with Laszlo conducted by Bitcoin Magazine in 2019, when asked why he did this, Laszlo stated, "The reason I wanted to do the pizza thing is because to me it was free pizza. I mean I coded this thing, mined Bitcoin, and feel like I won the internet that day—I got pizza for contributing to an open-source project. Hobbies usually cost money and time, and in this case, my hobby bought me dinner."

Laszlo

The "experiment" carried out by Laszlo is also related to the ease of mining blocks at that time. As a programmer, he was not only among the first to get involved with Bitcoin but also one of the inventors of GPU mining, reportedly quickly accumulating tens of thousands of bitcoins. According to the Blockchain explorer OXT chart tool, funds started flowing into Laszlo's wallet from May 2010, reaching a peak balance of 20,962 BTC that month. It can be seen that the 10,000 bitcoins spent on pizza were quickly replenished through mining (his wallet set a historical high of 43,854 BTC in June 2010, with BTC gradually flowing out thereafter, although he may have had more than one wallet).

After the Bitcoin pizza transaction, as the Bitcoin price surged, netizens kept updating the latest market prices of those two pizzas in the comments below the post. Laszlo also commented that he did not expect Bitcoin to rise so rapidly. Even as Bitcoin became increasingly valuable, faced with the pizza transaction event, the later Laszlo Hanyecz stated in an interview that he did not regret the expense or lose sleep over it. In his words, he was quite happy during that time, considering he could get free pizza with a graphics card.

In fact, after completing the first transaction, Laszlo Hanyecz began using Bitcoin for payments frequently, spending about 100,000 bitcoins in total, now valued at over $40 billion. The 10,000 bitcoins Laszlo spent, valued at about $30, for the pizza purchase, are now worth over $260 million.

Laszlo himself has always been relatively low-key, not having his own social media accounts, so people do not know if he became wealthy because of Bitcoin. However, you can continue to follow the fate of the 10,000 bitcoins used to buy pizza after Laszlo. The seller who transacted with Laszlo Hanyecz was a California boy named Jeremy Sturdivant, who was 19 years old at the time. He started getting into Bitcoin in 2009 and also mined thousands of bitcoins himself. Jeremy was, in fact, an early Bitcoin adopter, always willing to use Bitcoin for payments online or offline whenever he had the chance. According to him, he spent those 10,000 bitcoins on a trip with his girlfriend.

In 2018, when interviewed, Jeremy admitted that he had never thought Bitcoin would appreciate so much in the future. Nevertheless, he has no regrets about spending those bitcoins. He calculated that the pizza sale transaction brought him an income of $400, which increased tenfold in value, making the deal quite profitable.

Later on, the price trend of Bitcoin was there for all to see. In May 2023, the market and capital still showed confidence in Bitcoin and looked forward to the next halving period. Hanyecz also continued to maintain this positive attitude. This may be because since joining the Bitcoin open-source community in 2010, his approach to Bitcoin has not changed. For him, it is still just a hobby rather than a profession.

The low-key Hanyecz has since been participating as a Bitcoin enthusiast. "To be honest, I feel a bit detached because there is too much attention," he said. "I don't want to attract that kind of attention, and of course, I don't want people to think I am Satoshi... I just think it's better to treat it as a hobby. I have a regular job, and I will not work full-time on Bitcoin. I don't want it to become my responsibility and profession. I am happy to be involved to this extent."

When Bitcoin Magazine reported on May 22, 2019, they were also delighted that Hanyecz could participate. "After all, he provided us with Bitcoin Core on MacOS and GPU mining—not to mention the pizza meme, although it may not be as important or impressive as his other contributions, for the community, it has made May 22nd unforgettable (and delicious)."

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