Would You Pay Millions for Pizza?
By Dhruv Shan on The Capital
Pizza is one of the most universally loved junk foods. Sure, we have arguments over pineapple on pizza and other such nonsense, but the majority of us can agree it’s great comfort food. Served either with some cheesy garlic breadsticks or wedges etc. or even just taken straight up cold, pizza invokes a sense of inner joy like few foods do. It’s the kind of food you are willing to pay a decent amount for. But would you pay 8 figures for it?
Now, this 8 figure sum is in US Dollars and not Zimbabwe Dollars. Nevertheless, fancy paying close to 100 million of those lovely green-backs for 2 large pizzas? Well sadly, you won’t be the first one to achieve this absurdity.
You see, on 22nd May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000BTC for 2 large pizzas. The core idea was using Bitcoin as a method of payment, something which had never been done prior to this occasion. So our man Laszlo decided to reach out to the community members of the Bitcointalk Forum, created by BTC founder Satoshi Nakamoto. He wanted pizza ( I empathize) and he was willing to do a deal in the digital cryptocurrency with anyone who would deliver pizzas to him.
Another forum user, jercos, felt like he was getting a good deal. 10,000 BTC was worth about $41 back then, and those 2 large pizzas would only cost jercos $25. A very healthy profit margin. Thus a deal was struck, and the first-ever Bitcoin payments were done for pizza. What a madlad.
When people compliment a pizza they usually use terms like amazing, cheesy, tasty, etc. Well, the 2 pizzas ordered from Papa John’s have become ‘legendary.’ Not only did the 2 ‘Italians’ bear witness to a historic transaction but they also rose in value. Hell, rose is an understatement. At its peak 1 BTC was around 20,000 USD, meaning those pizzas went from $25 to $200. Followed by 6 zero’s. That’s right, 200 million dollars for 2 large pizzas.
Even now, with BTC’s price floating at around 9000 USD, the overall value of the pizzas is 90 million dollars. That’s well over 45 million dollars a pizza. And these were bog-standard pizzas. No Mars space dust, gold foiled or truffle filled monstrosities.
Does Laszlo regret his purchase? Not exactly. Laszlo was an early contributor to Bitcoin software, and among the Bitcoin mining community, he is regarded as a genius for transferring crypto mining from CPU intensive to GPU intensive tasks. Plus, he had mined the 10,000 BTC on his own, so in theory, he was having ‘free’ pizzas. Additionally, no one would have thought Bitcoin value would have become as high as a druggie on cocaine.
No doubt at the back of his mind there is that ‘What if…’ question ( Laszlo’s mind, not the druggie’s). At least the Florida man got 2 pizzas out of it. You can bet that jercos sold the bitcoin as its value increased, and it’s quite hard to imagine him onto the coin till it reached its zenith. He probably thinks ‘ What if..’ too.
The biggest winner at the end of this event, of which Bitcoin enthusiasts, investors, miners call as the Bitcoin Pizza Day, is no doubt Papa John’s. Their pizzas are worth millions of dollars. Whether they taste that well is debatable, right?
Originally published at http://thefirstsapien.blogspot.com on May 25, 2020.
