Crypto glossary
Bitcoin Pizza Day
Bitcoin Pizza Day, every 22 May, marks the 2010 purchase of two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, widely seen as the first real-world bitcoin purchase.
On 18 May 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz posted on the Bitcointalk forum offering 10,000 BTC to anyone who would deliver two large pizzas. Four days later, another user ordered the pizzas from a local restaurant to Hanyecz's home in Florida and received the bitcoin. At the time the coins were worth about $40, and the trade helped show that bitcoin could buy something tangible.
The date became an annual celebration in the crypto community. Exchanges, restaurants and Bitcoin meetups run pizza promotions, and news outlets calculate what those 10,000 BTC would be worth at current prices, turning the story into a parable about early adoption and the cost of spending bitcoin.
Hanyecz has said he does not regret it, since someone had to use bitcoin as money for it to have value, and he also contributed early GPU mining code. The anniversary is a good reminder of bitcoin's growth but also feeds a hodl culture that discourages spending, a tension in debates over whether bitcoin should be a currency or a savings asset.
Example
Every 22 May, a Madrid bitcoin meetup orders pizzas paid with Lightning and recounts how two pizzas once cost 10,000 BTC.