Bitcoin Pizza Day:
pizza for 10,000 BTC

The pizza was bought for exactly 10,000 BTC. It was a single transaction — Laszlo Hanyecz sent the full amount to a user with the nickname jercos, who placed the order for him at Papa John's and paid for it with his own dollars.

In 2010, 10,000 bitcoin were worth about $41 — the price of one bitcoin at the time was around $0.0041. No one could have imagined that a few years later, the same amount would turn into hundreds of millions of dollars.

At the current bitcoin price of around $80,000–$85,000 per coin, 10,000 BTC is worth roughly $800–850 million. Each of Laszlo’s two pizzas would cost about $400 million today.

At the 2025 peak, when bitcoin reached $123,000, the pizza’s value exceeded $1.23 billion — making it the most expensive food in human history in terms of opportunity cost.

Laszlo Hanyecz is a programmer from Florida and one of Bitcoin’s early developers. He made an important technical contribution — in particular, he helped adapt mining to graphics cards (GPU mining).

Despite “losing” hundreds of millions of dollars, Laszlo has publicly said that he does not regret the deal. His goal was to prove that bitcoin works as a currency — and he achieved it. In 2018, he repeated the experiment by buying two pizzas via the Lightning Network.

The pizzas were ordered from Papa John's — two large pies: one with pepperoni and mushrooms, and the other with standard toppings. Delivered to Jacksonville, Florida.

One nuance: Laszlo did not pay Papa John's directly — a UK user, jercos, paid in dollars and received the bitcoins from Laszlo. In essence, jercos carried out the world’s first P2P exchange of bitcoins for a real-world product.

Pizza Day became a turning point for several reasons:

• It was the first documented purchase of a real-world product with bitcoins — the moment crypto became real money
• The deal demonstrated the possibility of P2P payments without banks or intermediaries
• The story went viral and brought thousands of new people to Bitcoin
• Every year, Bitcoin Pizza Day reminds investors of the power of long-term thinking

Today, Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated in many countries: pizzerias accept bitcoins, wallets offer bonuses, and media outlets publish special features.

Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated in different ways:

• Pizzerias around the world accept bitcoin as payment specifically on that day
• Crypto exchanges and wallets run promotions, give out bonuses, and cut fees
• Communities host meetups, conferences, and pizza parties
• Media outlets publish retrospectives and interviews with Laszlo Hanyecz
• Investors buy pizza with bitcoin — a symbolic gesture that recreates the historic deal

On May 22, 2010, the bitcoin exchange rate was around $0.0041 per 1 BTC — less than half a cent. That is why 10,000 BTC were worth just $41.

It was an early period: bitcoin was available only to a small group of enthusiasts on the BitcoinTalk forum. The first exchange, Mt. Gox, had only just started operating, liquidity was minimal, and the price was set by agreement between community members.

Yes — thousands of venues worldwide accept bitcoin, including some Pizza Hut and Subway locations, as well as independent pizzerias. There are especially many of these venues in El Salvador (where BTC is legal tender), Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Japan.

The most convenient way is via the Lightning Network, an instant payment technology built on Bitcoin. Lightning lets you pay for coffee or pizza in seconds, with fees of fractions of a cent.

The key lesson of Bitcoin Pizza Day — you don’t need to buy 10,000 bitcoin. You can start with as little as the equivalent of $10–20:

• Step 1. Install a crypto wallet (Trustee Plus, Trust Wallet, or a similar one)
• Step 2. Buy a small amount with a Visa/Mastercard — it takes 1–2 minutes
• Step 3. Never share your seed phrase (12 recovery words) with anyone
• Step 4. Make regular small purchases — the DCA strategy (dollar-cost averaging)

And never invest more than you’re prepared to lose.

Crypto has a few important dates: January 3 (Genesis Block), October 31 (Satoshi’s white paper), and Halving Day. But Bitcoin Pizza Day stands out:

• It’s the most people’s holiday — easy to understand even for those far from technology
• It’s tied to a real product, not an abstraction
• It has strong humor and a human story — someone “lost” billions on pizza
• It’s a reminder of the power of long-term thinking in investing

That’s why Bitcoin Pizza Day has become something bigger than just a date on the crypto calendar — it’s a cultural phenomenon.