Bitcoin Pizza Day: The 10,000 BTC Transaction That Started It All

Sixteen years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz made history by spending 10,000 BTC on two pizzas — completing what is widely recognized as the first real-world commercial transaction using Bitcoin. His post on the Bitcointalk forum on May 22, 2010, asked for two large pizzas in exchange for the coins, and someone took him up on it.

At today's prices, that 10,000 BTC would be worth over $767 million. The transaction is remembered not as a cautionary tale but as a proof-of-concept moment: Bitcoin worked as a medium of exchange before it was a store of value, a reserve asset, or a macro hedge. Every May 22, the crypto community marks Bitcoin Pizza Day as a reminder of how far the network has traveled from a niche internet experiment to a globally recognized financial asset.