# Two pizzas once cost 10,000 bitcoins, a purchase that became legendary > Did you know one of the most famous transactions in the history of cryptocurrencies involves two simple pizzas. This is not a - Author: Maxime Marquette - Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co) - Section: Note - Published: 2026-07-07 - Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/deux-pizzas-ont-coute-10-000-bitcoins-un-achat-devenu-legendaire ## Key takeaways - On May 22, 2010, Hanyecz posted a forum offer to pay 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas, and another user accepted and ordered them from a restaurant chain. - The transaction is recorded on the public blockchain, which is why it is so well documented. - At the time bitcoin had almost no market value, so the sum was worth only a few dollars. - At bitcoin's highest historical price, the same amount would have been worth several hundred million dollars, which the article presents as a striking illustration of volatility. - The article says Hanyecz never expressed deep regret, seeing the purchase as a proof that bitcoin could work as a means of payment. ## Introduction: the most retold story in crypto ### A transaction that was about to become legend **Did you know** one of the most famous transactions in the history of **cryptocurrencies** involves two simple pizzas. This is not a metaphor or journalistic exaggeration: a man really did exchange **10,000 bitcoins** for two pizzas delivered to his home, at a time when **bitcoin** had almost no recognized market value at all. This anecdote, now told in nearly every book devoted to the history of **digital currencies**, shows just how far the early days of bitcoin were from the sophisticated financial world it represents today. On **May 22, 2010**, American programmer **Laszlo Hanyecz** carried out what is now considered the **first documented purchase** made with bitcoin in the real world. That day has since been celebrated every year by the cryptocurrency community as **Bitcoin Pizza Day**, a commemoration that is both joyful and a little nostalgic for an era when bitcoin was nothing more than an experimental project run by a handful of enthusiastic programmers. ### The technical backdrop of a currency still in its infancy To fully understand this story, we need to go back to the context of **2010**. **Bitcoin** had been created just over a year earlier by a person or group of people using the name **Satoshi Nakamoto**, whose real identity remains unknown to this day. At the time, the bitcoin network had only a small number of users, mostly developers and cryptographers curious to experiment with this new form of **decentralized digital currency**. Bitcoin had no officially recognized market value back then, with no established exchange allowing it to be easily converted into traditional currencies. Early users mostly traded bitcoins among themselves as an experiment, with no real sense of the future value this currency might acquire. It was precisely in this climate of total uncertainty that Laszlo Hanyecz made his now-historic offer. ## The exact sequence of the historic transaction ### An offer posted on a discussion forum The story begins on an **online forum** devoted to technical discussions about bitcoin, where **Laszlo Hanyecz** posted a message offering to pay **10,000 bitcoins** to anyone willing to deliver him two pizzas, regardless of who ordered or prepared them. His request had nothing sophisticated about it: he simply wanted a meal delivered, and wanted to prove, in practice, that bitcoin could work as a genuine means of payment for everyday goods. A few days later, another forum user accepted the trade, ordering two pizzas from a restaurant chain and getting reimbursed in bitcoins by Hanyecz. The transaction was recorded on the bitcoin network's **public ledger**, which still allows anyone today to look up this historic exchange thanks to the **blockchain**, that transparent and tamper-proof ledger on which the entire system rests. ### Why this transaction was remembered by history What makes this transaction so memorable isn't its technical complexity, but its **symbolism**. It represents the very first time bitcoin was used in practice to acquire a real physical good in the real world, stepping outside the closed circle of purely experimental exchanges between developers. It is a turning-point moment marking bitcoin's shift from a purely theoretical computing project to a functional medium of exchange, however modest at the time. Historians of **digital finance** often view this episode as a founding milestone, comparable to the first commercial transaction using a new currency in traditional economic history. It is this symbolic, foundational dimension that explains why the anecdote continues to be told and celebrated, more than fifteen years after the fact. ## How much would those 10,000 bitcoins be worth today ### A figure that leaves people dizzy The calculation that fascinates the general public most obviously concerns the **current value** of that sum. At the time of the transaction, **10,000 bitcoins** were worth barely a few dollars, since bitcoin then had only a symbolic value close to zero. But over the years, bitcoin's value has undergone a **spectacular rise**, punctuated by sharp swings, at times reaching peaks of tens of thousands of dollars per unit. Applying the **highest historical price** bitcoin has ever reached, that sum of 10,000 units would have represented a value of several **hundred million dollars**. That figure, hard to grasp intuitively, makes this pizza purchase one of the most commented-on and most frequently cited transactions in the history of cryptocurrencies, since it so dramatically illustrates the extreme volatility of this asset class. ### A lesson in humility about the unpredictability of markets This story is often told with a touch of irony, given how dizzying the gap seems today between the value at the time and its potential current worth. *But it would be unfair to reduce this anecdote to a simple joke about a missed opportunity.* At the time, no one, not even the most optimistic developers of the bitcoin project, could have predicted with any certainty the extraordinary trajectory this currency would follow over the following decade. This fundamental uncertainty is exactly what makes **financial markets** and **emerging digital assets** so difficult to anticipate. Experts in **behavioral finance** often cite this example to illustrate how risky it is to judge, in hindsight, decisions made in a climate of radical uncertainty, where the information available at the time simply did not allow anyone to foresee such a change in value. ## Laszlo Hanyecz, a legend despite himself ### A passionate developer rather than an unlucky investor **Laszlo Hanyecz** has never expressed deep regret about this transaction, a point often noted in the interviews he has given over the years. A developer by training, he was interested above all in the **technical workings** of bitcoin and its viability as a practical means of payment, far more than in its potential future speculative value. For him, this transaction represented above all a successful **proof of concept**, demonstrating that this fledgling digital currency could indeed be used for real commercial exchanges. This perspective, at odds with the usual narrative of a missed opportunity, deserves to be highlighted. Hanyecz actively contributed to the technical development of bitcoin in its early days, helping improve the original software, a role often overshadowed by the disproportionate fame of his pizza purchase. *His story is a reminder that technology pioneers don't always measure their contributions by the size of their own wallet.* ### An annual ritual that has become part of the crypto community Every year, on **May 22**, the global community of cryptocurrency enthusiasts celebrates **Bitcoin Pizza Day** through events, social media posts, and sometimes even free pizza giveaways in certain crypto circles. This spontaneously born tradition has become an unmissable date on the calendar of blockchain fans, somewhere between a historical tribute and a collective inside joke. This ritual also shows how digital communities build their own **founding mythology**, complete with its figures, symbolic dates and origin stories. Bitcoin Pizza Day is now regularly mentioned by the international business press, proof that this anecdote has long since spread beyond the narrow circle of early users to become a fixture of contemporary digital popular culture. ## Bitcoin in 2010, a still-obscure project ### A community of enthusiasts above all One has to picture a **bitcoin** very different from the one we know today. In **2010**, there was no **mainstream exchange platform**, no easy-to-use **digital wallet**, and no regular media coverage. The few people interested in the project gathered on **specialized forums**, discussing **cryptography**, **network protocols** and **mining**, vocabulary still completely foreign to the general public of the time. This obscure climate explains why a transaction so modest in appearance could leave such a mark: it represented a **full-scale test** for a tiny community of pioneers, convinced of the potential of this **decentralized technology** yet still unable to gauge its future economic consequences. **Laszlo Hanyecz's** gesture fit within this almost artisanal, exploratory spirit that characterized the earliest days of the **blockchain**. ### The role of the first miners in the emerging ecosystem At the time, **bitcoin mining** could still be done with a simple **personal computer**, a situation radically different from the massive industrial infrastructure that dominates this activity today. The earliest miners, including **Hanyecz**, accumulated quantities of bitcoins that seem staggering today, simply because the network's **computational difficulty** was still very low and competition was practically nonexistent. This relative abundance partly explains why giving away **10,000 bitcoins** did not, at the time, represent a considerable sacrifice in the eyes of its owner. **Historians of digital finance** often recall this context to avoid overly harsh retrospective judgments: back then, these units were simply the fruit of a **technical hobby**, not yet a financial asset in the true sense of the term. *Judging the past through the eyes of the present remains, without a doubt, one of the most common traps in economic history.* Several other early adopters who mined bitcoins casually on home computers around the same period later found themselves in similarly ironic situations, having spent, lost, or simply forgotten about wallets that would eventually have been worth a fortune. Hanyecz's pizza order simply happens to be the best documented and most publicly discussed of these stories, largely because the transaction itself is permanently recorded on the blockchain for anyone to verify. ## What this story teaches us about value and time ### The fundamental difficulty of valuing a new asset The story of the **Bitcoin Pizza** perfectly illustrates a central question in economics: how do you evaluate the future value of a completely new asset, with no price history and no comparable benchmark. **Financial regulators**, particularly in the United States, took years to develop regulatory frameworks suited to this new asset class, precisely because its behavior defied traditional economic models. Institutions such as the **US Federal Reserve** and the **Securities and Exchange Commission** have since published numerous analyses on the particular nature of cryptocurrencies, often looking back at this industry's chaotic beginnings to better understand its later evolution. The pizza anecdote remains, in this context, a *textbook case* regularly cited to illustrate the birth of an entirely new market. ### A symbol that grew bigger than the transaction itself Beyond its anecdotal side, this story has become a true cultural symbol, one that has long outgrown its original context. It is regularly cited in **international business media**, in popular books about digital finance, and even in speeches by tech entrepreneurs seeking to illustrate the fundamental unpredictability of innovation. Bitcoin Pizza Day is no longer just a date; it has become a universally understood shorthand for the extreme volatility and disruptive potential of cryptocurrencies. Fifteen years after the fact, this story continues to fascinate newcomers discovering the world of cryptocurrencies just as much as seasoned digital finance experts, proof that certain founding stories travel through time without ever losing their power to evoke or their ability to surprise a new audience with every retelling. Every few years, someone tries to calculate a fresh dollar figure for the transaction using whatever price bitcoin happens to be trading at that week, turning the anecdote into a kind of running scoreboard for the entire industry. That habit alone says a great deal about how central this single pizza order has become to the way cryptocurrency tells its own story to newcomers. **By Maxime Marquette, columnist** ## Columnist's transparency note ### Editorial stance I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies. I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events. ### Method and sources This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here. **Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies. **Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations. When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**. ### Nature of the analysis The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted. My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors. This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text. ## Sources ### Primary sources - Securities and Exchange Commission — Documentation on cryptocurrency regulation — Accessed 2026 - US Federal Reserve — Analyses on digital assets and financial stability — Accessed 2026 - Bitcoin.org — Official documentation on how the bitcoin network works — Accessed 2026 ### Secondary sources - BBC News Technology — Reporting on the history of Bitcoin Pizza Day — Accessed 2026 - Forbes — Analyses on the evolution of bitcoin's value — Accessed 2026 - Smithsonian Magazine, Innovation section — Insight into the early days of cryptocurrencies — Accessed 2026 --- Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/deux-pizzas-ont-coute-10-000-bitcoins-un-achat-devenu-legendaire