The $1 Billion Pizza: How Laszlo Hanyecz Made Bitcoin Real

On May 22, 2010, a programmer in Florida named Laszlo Hanyecz did something that would become legendary in the cryptocurrency world. He bought two Papa John's pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin. At the time, that was worth about $41. Today, as Bitcoin trades above $100,000 per coin, those pizzas are valued at over $1 billion.

It's become the ultimate cautionary tale about cryptocurrency investing, the story everyone tells when Bitcoin hits a new high. "Imagine paying a billion dollars for pizza!" People shake their heads at Hanyecz's decision, treating it as one of the most expensive meals in history and possibly the worst financial move ever made.

But here's what most people miss: without that pizza purchase, Bitcoin might never have become what it is today. Hanyecz didn't waste his Bitcoin. He proved it could actually work as money. And that might be worth more than a billion dollars.

The Post That Started Everything

On May 18, 2010, Hanyecz posted a simple message on BitcoinTalk, the forum where Bitcoin enthusiasts gathered to discuss the new cryptocurrency that was barely over a year old:

"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!"

He went on to specify his toppings: "I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc. just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that."

The offer was straightforward. Hanyecz wanted someone to order him pizza and have it delivered to his house in Jacksonville, Florida. In exchange, he'd send them 10,000 Bitcoin.

Three days later, on May 21, Hanyecz posted an update: "So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I'm offering too low?"

But the next day, May 22, 2010, success: "I just want to report that I successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza."

A British Bitcoin enthusiast with the username "jercos" had taken him up on the offer. Jercos called a Papa John's, ordered two large pizzas, paid with his credit card (about $25), and Hanyecz transferred him 10,000 Bitcoin. The pizzas arrived. The transaction was complete.

Bitcoin had just been used to buy something in the real world.

Who Is Laszlo Hanyecz?

To understand why this matters, you need to know who Hanyecz was in the Bitcoin community.

He wasn't just some random person who happened to own Bitcoin. Hanyecz was one of Bitcoin's earliest and most important contributors. He was one of the first thousand miners on the Bitcoin blockchain, meaning he'd been involved since the very beginning when Bitcoin was still mostly theoretical.

More importantly, Hanyecz had made two critical technical contributions that shaped Bitcoin's future.

First, he created the first MacOS client for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, had originally coded Bitcoin to run on Windows and Linux. Hanyecz modified the code so it could run on Apple computers, opening Bitcoin up to Mac users and laying the foundation for all future MacOS Bitcoin wallets and applications.

Second, and perhaps more significant, Hanyecz discovered GPU mining. On May 10, 2010, just days before his pizza purchase, Hanyecz posted on BitcoinTalk: "Updated Mac OS X binary… It will use your GPU to generate bitcoins. This works really well if you have a good GPU like an NVIDIA 8800 or something like that."

This was revolutionary. Until then, people were mining Bitcoin using their computer's CPU (central processing unit). Hanyecz figured out how to use the GPU (graphics processing unit) instead, which was dramatically more efficient. His discovery triggered Bitcoin's first digital gold rush. The total hashrate (mining power) of the Bitcoin network exploded by 130,000% by the end of 2010.

This innovation was so important that Satoshi Nakamoto himself reached out to Hanyecz. In their conversation, Satoshi wrote: "A big attraction to new users is that anyone with a computer can generate some free coins."

Some historians believe this conversation may have inspired Hanyecz's pizza purchase. Satoshi was emphasizing that Bitcoin needed to be used, not just mined and hoarded. What good was a digital currency if nobody ever spent it?

The Point Wasn't the Pizza

When people focus on the current value of those 10,000 Bitcoin, they're missing what Hanyecz was actually doing.

In May 2010, Bitcoin was still pure theory. Yes, people were mining it. Yes, they were trading it on early exchanges for tiny amounts of money. But nobody had actually used it to buy anything tangible. It existed entirely in the digital realm.

Hanyecz's pizza purchase proved Bitcoin could function as real money. It could be exchanged for goods and services. You could get something delivered to your door by sending some code across the internet. That's what currency is supposed to do.

"It made it real for some people, I mean it certainly did for me," Hanyecz said years later in an interview with 60 Minutes.

The transaction was an experiment, and experiments have costs. Hanyecz was testing whether Bitcoin could work as "electronic cash," as Satoshi's original white paper described it. The answer was yes.

He Didn't Just Buy Pizza Once

Here's something most people don't know: Hanyecz didn't just buy pizza once. He kept doing it.

After his initial success, the pizza purchase became "an open offer." Other people started ordering pizza for Hanyecz in exchange for Bitcoin. He continued this for months throughout 2010.

Looking at blockchain records from an address Hanyecz used, researchers have found that he received and spent approximately 81,432 Bitcoin between April and November 2010. That's worth over $8.6 billion today.

Some of this probably went to pizza. Some might have been given away to new BitcoinTalk members (a common practice when Bitcoin was essentially worthless). But Hanyecz was clearly spending his Bitcoin freely, treating it as currency rather than an investment.

In August 2010, he finally stopped, writing: "I can't really afford to keep doing it since I can't generate thousands of coins a day anymore."

The GPU mining revolution he'd started meant mining was getting more competitive. It was harder to accumulate thousands of coins. The era of easy mining was ending.

Does He Regret It?

This is the question everyone asks. Does Laszlo Hanyecz, who spent what's now worth over a billion dollars on pizza, regret his decision?

His answer has been consistent: no.

In 2014, when Bitcoin was trading around $600, Hanyecz wrote on the Bitcoin message board: "I mean 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."

In 2020, on the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, he told CoinDesk: "I don't regret it. I think it's great that I got to be part of the early history of Bitcoin in that way."

Hanyecz understood something crucial: for Bitcoin to succeed, people had to use it. Hoarding alone wouldn't prove anything. Someone had to be first to actually spend it on something real.

"The volatility that makes bitcoin attractive to investors also makes it difficult to use as money," he observed. But volatility is just one side of the equation. If nobody ever uses Bitcoin for transactions, it can't fulfill its purpose as a currency.

Hanyecz was willing to be that first person, even if it meant taking a loss in retrospect.

Bitcoin Pizza Day: May 22

May 22 has become "Bitcoin Pizza Day" in the cryptocurrency community. Every year on this date, Bitcoin enthusiasts around the world celebrate the anniversary with pizza parties, meetups, and events.

In 2025, on the 15th anniversary, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of over $109,000 per coin, making the original 10,000 Bitcoin worth approximately $1.1 billion. Cryptocurrency companies announced promotions and gatherings worldwide. Bitget gave away pizzas to over 2,000 people at events in multiple countries. Tel Aviv hosted a Bitcoin Block Party. New York City held commemorative gatherings.

It's become more than just a funny story about expensive pizza. Bitcoin Pizza Day is a celebration of Bitcoin's journey from theoretical concept to functioning currency.

What Happened to the Other Guy?

While Hanyecz gets all the attention, it's worth noting the other side of the transaction: "jercos," whose real name is Jeremy Sturdivant.

Sturdivant was 19 years old when he ordered those pizzas for Hanyecz. He received 10,000 Bitcoin, which he later spent when they were worth a few hundred dollars. He used the money to travel.

In interviews, Sturdivant has said he doesn't regret spending the Bitcoin either. "I had no idea it would take off like this," he said. "At the time, it was just this weird internet money thing."

Blockchain records show that Sturdivant's Bitcoin address was used a few more times over the years, in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2020, but the vast majority of the original 10,000 Bitcoin were spent long before they became valuable.

Both sides of the first Bitcoin purchase spent their coins. Neither sat on them waiting for the value to explode. And in a way, that's fitting. The transaction was about using Bitcoin, not about getting rich.

Hanyecz's Legacy Beyond Pizza

While the pizza story is what made Hanyecz famous, his contributions to Bitcoin go far deeper.

His GPU mining discovery fundamentally changed how Bitcoin works. The small-scale mining setups that sprang up in people's basements and garages after his discovery were the prototypes for the industrial-scale mining operations that now secure the Bitcoin network.

His MacOS client opened Bitcoin to a wider audience and established patterns for how Bitcoin software could be adapted to different platforms.

And his willingness to actually use Bitcoin as currency, not just hoard it as an investment, demonstrated that Bitcoin could function as Satoshi intended: as peer-to-peer electronic cash.

These contributions shaped Bitcoin's development in its most fragile early days, when the project could have easily collapsed into irrelevance.

A Different Kind of Value

Here's an interesting thought experiment: what if Hanyecz had never bought that pizza? What if he'd held onto all his Bitcoin?

Yes, he'd be a billionaire today. But would Bitcoin be as successful?

The pizza purchase proved Bitcoin worked. It generated publicity. It got people excited. It showed skeptics that this weird internet money could actually buy real things. The story has been told thousands of times, bringing more people into the cryptocurrency space.

How do you value that contribution? How much is Bitcoin worth today because people like Hanyecz were willing to spend it and prove it worked, rather than just hoarding it?

Hanyecz created value in a different way. Not by accumulating wealth, but by demonstrating utility.

He Did It Again (With Lightning Network)

In a delightful bit of symmetry, on February 25, 2018, Hanyecz made history again. He became the first person to buy pizza using the Lightning Network, a new technology designed to make Bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper.

He paid 0.00649 Bitcoin for two Papa John's pizzas, eight years after his original purchase. This time, the Bitcoin was worth about $62, and the pizzas cost about $36. Much more reasonable pricing.

"One thing is for sure," one cryptocurrency historian noted, "Laszlo loves Papa Johns pizza and Bitcoin."

The 2018 purchase showed that Hanyecz remained committed to using Bitcoin as currency, testing new technologies, and proving concepts through real-world transactions.

The Bigger Picture

Bitcoin Pizza Day isn't really about pizza. It's about the moment an idea became reality.

For 16 months after Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first Bitcoin block, the cryptocurrency existed mostly as code, forum discussions, and speculative trading. People were mining it, talking about it, and trading tiny amounts of it for dollars. But nobody was actually using it to buy anything.

Hanyecz's pizza purchase was the proof of concept. It was the moment Bitcoin stopped being theoretical and became functional. It crossed the threshold from "interesting digital experiment" to "money that can buy pizza."

That threshold mattered. It still matters.

Today, businesses around the world accept Bitcoin. Just in May 2025, Steak 'n Shake began accepting Bitcoin via the Lightning Network. What once seemed like a novelty has become increasingly mainstream.

But someone had to be first. Someone had to take the risk. Someone had to spend Bitcoin when it was brand new, unproven, and potentially worthless, just to see if it would work.

Laszlo Hanyecz was that someone. And yes, those pizzas cost him a billion dollars in retrospect. But they also helped build a trillion-dollar ecosystem.

The Bottom Line

When Bitcoin hit $111,999 on May 22, 2025, the 15th anniversary of the pizza purchase, those 10,000 Bitcoin were worth over $1.1 billion. It's the most expensive pizza in history by a ridiculous margin.

But Laszlo Hanyecz doesn't regret it. He sees it as his contribution to Bitcoin's history, his part in proving that this crazy idea of internet money could actually work.

"I mean, people can say I'm stupid," he said back in 2014. "But it was a great deal at the time."

And he's right. At the time, 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas was a fair deal. More than fair, actually, since Bitcoin had almost no real-world value. The fact that it became worth a billion dollars later doesn't change the fact that Hanyecz needed to prove Bitcoin could be spent, and someone needed to be willing to accept it.

The next time you hear about the billion-dollar pizza and think "what a mistake," remember: mistakes are only mistakes if they don't achieve their purpose. Hanyecz's purpose wasn't to get rich. It was to show that Bitcoin worked.

Mission accomplished. Even if it did cost him a billion dollars' worth of pizza.

Sources

CoinDesk. (2025). What You Didn't Know About Laszlo Hanyecz, the Bitcoin Pizza Day Legend. Retrieved from https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/05/22/what-you-didnt-know-about-laszlo-hanyecz-the-bitcoin-pizza-day-legend

CoinDesk. (2020). 10 Years After Laszlo Hanyecz Bought Pizza With 10K Bitcoin, He Has No Regrets. Retrieved from https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/05/22/10-years-after-laszlo-hanyecz-bought-pizza-with-10k-bitcoin-he-has-no-regrets

Fortune. (2025). 15 years ago, a software developer paid for two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoin. Those pies would be worth $1.1 billion today. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/article/pizza-bitcoin-day-story-laszlo-hanyecz-papa-johns-pizzas-value/

Bitcoin Magazine. (2025). 15 Years Since 10,000 BTC Bought Two Pizzas And Changed Everything. Retrieved from https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/bitcoin-pizza-day

Trakx. (2025). The History of Bitcoin Pizza Day: 10000 BTC for a Pizza. Retrieved from https://trakx.io/resources/insights/bitcoin-pizza-day/

Quartz. (2024). Everything to know about Bitcoin Pizza Day. Retrieved from https://qz.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-date-origin-history-cryptocurrency-1851481975

Bitcoin Wiki. Laszlo Hanyecz. Retrieved from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Laszlo_Hanyecz