Eleven years ago, the developer and BitcoinBitcoin is the first decentralized digital currency. It was created in 2009, by an anonymous founder or group of founders... More enthusiast Laszlo Hanyecz wanted to give some real use to the first cryptocurrencyA digital currency running on a blockchain and built with cryptography. Contrary to central-bank issued currency, cryptocurrency issuance rules are.... That’s why he asked for some pizzas through the forum Bitcointalk, and he ended up paying 10,000 BTCAn abbreviation for Bitcoin. (yes, BTC units) for a couple of pizzas from Papa John’s. This was on May 22, 2010, and, since then, we celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day. It was the first real-world purchase with Bitcoin.
Maybe you’ll find bonkers now the idea of spending 10,000 BTC (around $400m to date) on a couple of pizzas. However, back then, the worth of those coins was about $41. Some people in the original post even doubted it if that was enough for the pizzas, including the author himself. But that’s how the celebration began.
Eleven years of Bitcoin Pizza Day
Nobody suspected in 2010 that Bitcoin (BTC) would grow to have a larger market capitalization than Visa, Mastercard, Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla, Walmart, PayPal, Cola-Cola, and even Walt Disney. Laszlo Hanyecz and Jeremy Sturdivant (who sold the pizzas to Laszlo) neither. Hanyecz expressed about it:
“People always ask. Yes, I wish I still had 10,000 Bitcoin, but that was a long time ago, and I still was glad to be part of it. I mean, I’m talking to you about it now. Bitcoin is still around. It’s popular. I get to be one of the pioneer guys. That’s worth something.”
A funny thing is that the original post (and the offer of 10,000 BTC for pizzas) was still open and popular until June 2010. So, probably, Laszlo spent more thousands of BTC on more pizzas later. At least, Papa John’s eventually gave him some store credit for the marketing. As you may imagine, every Bitcoin Pizza Day is a busy one for them.
As for Jeremy Sturdivant, he was only 19 years old back then. And no, he doesn’t have the bitcoins anymore. He didn’t wait for enough to sell them either, so, he only got $400 for them. Plus, he probably spent them in “humble bundles” (indie videogames). Just like he said in an interview: “Bitcoin as a currency is meant to be spent”. That’s why BTC acquired so much value over the years, indeed.
Where to eat this Bitcoin Pizza Day?
Well, let’s go to the main thing: where can you buy some pizzas with BTC and win some prizes? The first one we can mention is, of course, Papa John’s in Jacksonville, Florida (U.S.). That’s the place where the celebration started. So, this May 22, 2021, they’re offering a nice promotion.
They announced that this Bitcoin Pizza Day they’ll be giving away 10,000 slices of pizza to their first 50 customers. A good reason to be an early bird, right? Additionally, another franchise in the United Kingdom is offering $14 in BTC and $21 discounts for purchases over $43 until May 23.
For their part, the app Slice Life joined PizzaDAO (a community of digital artists creating pizza NFTs) to give away over 2,500 pizzas across all the United States. To redeem them, it’s necessary to download Slice Life and use the code “FREEPIZZADAY” this Saturday. According to the announcement:
“The pizzas will be funded from community donations and sales generated through NFTs created by members of the Rare Pizzas collective. The goal is to support local pizzerias that have been hit by the pandemic while connecting artists, developers, and pizza lovers who want to give back to independent pizzerias on Bitcoin Pizza Day.”
In any case, you’ll always find where to pay for your pizzas with Bitcoin close to you. For example, if you’re in Venezuela, Pizza Hut is already accepting BTC payments. In Mexico, the thematic Bitcoin Embassy Bar even makes events for the day. This year, it’s offering to eat as much pizza as you can for only 10,000 satoshis ($3.6). In the Netherlands and Germany, the food delivery chain Takeaway.com (Lieferando) accepts Bitcoin as a payment method.
Beyond that, worldwide, you can find everything you need to spend bitcoins on sites like CoinMap, Cryptwerk, and SpendBitcoins. You’ll find more than your closest friendly BTC pizzeria there!
More than pizzas
Every Bitcoin Pizza Day, you’ll find more than pizzas inside the crypto world. Several specialized companies also make offers, discounts, and giveaways to celebrate. Ballet, a hardware walletA crypto wallet is a user-friendly software or hardware used to manage private keys. There are software wallets for desktop... provider, is one of them. To celebrate the day this year, Ballet is offering a nice pizza-keychain along with every purchase from its online store. This, and a free ticket to a webinar by its CEO, Bobby Lee.
In a similar vein, Trezor is offering a double pack of hardware wallets with a 10% discount, and BitBox offers one hardware wallet and “The Little Bitcoin Book” with a 9% discount. More than this, on Twitter, we can find a lot of giveaways for the day. For example, Sunny Bitcoin (managed by a popular angel investor), is giving away around $400 in BTC only by following and retweeting.
NFTs are also present this day. The artist Cryptical Hit is giving away five commemorative pizza tokens on Twitter, with the same conditions as Sunny Bitcoin. CartoonNFT is also organizing a giveaway of 20 tokens OTC for three winners. Besides, on RarePizzas, you’ll find some nice pizza-NFTs made in collaboration with over 300 artists.
Finally, you can always check if your favorite services/companies have promotions for this Saturday and celebrate in your own way. Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day!
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