Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated every year on May 22, the anniversary of the day in 2010 when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's pizzas. The coins were worth about $41 at the time, and the trade is remembered as the first well-known purchase of a real-world product with bitcoin.
It is part history lesson and part running joke, because those same coins would later be worth an enormous amount. Here is how the deal happened, what it was worth and how people mark the day.
The story of the bitcoin pizza
In May 2010, bitcoin was a curiosity used by a small group of enthusiasts. It had almost no price and nowhere to spend it. Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer in Florida and an early contributor to bitcoin, wanted to see if it could buy something ordinary.
On May 18, 2010, he posted a thread on the BitcoinTalk forum titled Pizza for bitcoins? (the original thread). He offered 10,000 bitcoin to anyone who would get two large pizzas delivered to him, so there would be leftovers for the next day. He did not care whether they were homemade or ordered from a restaurant, and he listed his toppings, with a polite request to skip the fish.
For a few days nobody bit. Then a 19-year-old forum member called jercos, Jeremy Sturdivant, took the deal. He ordered two Papa John's pizzas to Laszlo's house and received the 10,000 bitcoin in return.
On May 22, 2010, Laszlo posted that he had successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza, thanked jercos and shared photos of the pizzas. That post is why the date stuck.
How much were the pizzas worth?
At the time, the 10,000 bitcoin were worth about $41, close to what the two pizzas cost. Nobody thought of it as a big spend. If anything, it gave early bitcoin one of its first real-world reference prices.
The hindsight math is where the legend comes from. Bitcoin's price rose so far over the next fifteen years that those 10,000 coins became a famous what-if number:
- In 2010, about $41.
- When bitcoin first crossed $100,000 in December 2024, the same 10,000 coins would have been worth about a billion dollars on paper.
The exact figure moves with the market every day, so we won't quote a current one. The short version: the most expensive pizzas in history, at least on paper.
Neither side of the deal held onto their part. Jercos has said he spent his coins on travel, and Laszlo has said in interviews that he does not regret it. He has explained that he was mining a lot of bitcoin back then, and the point was to prove it worked.
Why Bitcoin Pizza Day matters
It is easy to treat the story as a punchline, but bitcoiners remember it for good reasons:
- It proved bitcoin could buy something. Before May 2010, bitcoin was mostly a technical experiment. After the pizza, it had been swapped for dinner.
- It helped set a price. A trade between two people, for a real thing, is how money gets a value in the first place.
- It is a lesson in time preference. The story is a gentle reminder of how hard it is to know what anything will be worth later, which is part of why bitcoiners talk so much about holding. Our what does HODL mean guide covers that side of the culture. As always, this is history, not financial advice.
What does Bitcoin Pizza Day celebrate?
Despite the jokes, the day isn't really about the price. It celebrates the moment bitcoin stopped being only an idea and became something two strangers used to trade. One person wanted pizza, another wanted bitcoin, and a forum thread was enough to make it happen.
That is why the date has spread far beyond the original forum. Each May you will see people around the world call it World Bitcoin Pizza Day, share the photos from 2010 and swap their own pizza stories. Companies run promotions and meetups order a stack of boxes. It is one of the few bitcoin anniversaries that newcomers find easy to enjoy, because everyone understands pizza.
Laszlo's second pizza
In February 2018, Laszlo bought pizza with bitcoin again, this time using the Lightning Network, a layer built on top of bitcoin for fast, cheap payments. The second purchase cost a tiny fraction of a bitcoin and showed how far the payment tools had come since his first order.
How to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day
You don't need permission or a ticket. A few ideas:
- Join a meetup. Many local bitcoin meetups hold pizza nights around May 22. Look up the bitcoin meetups in your city and check their calendars in early May.
- Pay with Lightning where you can. Some restaurants and pizzerias accept bitcoin through Lightning. If one near you does, it is the most fitting way to buy a slice that day.
- Buy a pizza for a friend. Recreating the original deal, one person paying for another's pizza, is a nice way to explain the story to someone new.
- Tell the story. Share the original forum thread or this guide with a friend who has never heard it. It is one of the friendliest ways into bitcoin history.
- Dress for the occasion. A bitcoin tee at a pizza meetup is about as on-theme as it gets.
If you want something to wear that day, our Stack Sats tee is a nod to collecting bitcoin a little at a time, and the HODL tee speaks for itself in a story like this one. Every shirt is black, printed to order and shipped from the USA, so order a couple of weeks before May 22 if you want it in time. Our bitcoin slang glossary explains the rest of the in-jokes you will hear at the meetup.
