#Gate广场披萨节 Two pizzas, and a legendary story that lasted fourteen years

May 22, 2010, an ordinary evening. A programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz in Florida opened the BitcoinTalk forum and posted: "I’ll give 10k bitcoins for two large pizzas—preferably Papa John’s so I can track the order."

At that time, Bitcoin was worth almost nothing. 10k bitcoins could only be exchanged for $41 on the exchange. After the post was made, most people just laughed. Until a few days later, another user Jeremy took on the "deal" and helped him order two pizzas. Laszlo excitedly updated on the forum: "Transaction successful! I got two great pizzas."

No one foresaw that this ordinary takeout would become one of the most iconic moments in cryptocurrency history.

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A lunch worth from $41 to billions of dollars

Today, Bitcoin’s price hovers above $70k. At the current rate of about $77,000 per BTC, those 10k BTC are worth up to $770 million. If Bitcoin breaks past last year’s high of $120k, the value of those two pizzas could even exceed $1.2 billion.

People jokingly call it “the most expensive pizza in history,” and tease Laszlo as “the unluckiest foodie.” But Laszlo himself never minded—he said in a later interview, “If no one had been willing to spend Bitcoin back then, it would never have become money. I’m proud to be the first to use it for a physical transaction.”

And that’s exactly how it happened. Before the pizza transaction, Bitcoin only existed in the computers of geeks—a digital abstract token. But those two steaming pizzas connected virtual code with the physical world for the first time.

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From “Pizza Day” to a test of faith

Fourteen years have passed. Every May 22nd, the global crypto community spontaneously celebrates “Bitcoin Pizza Day.” Exchanges deliver pizzas, communities airdrop tokens, miners tell jokes—it's as lively as a festival.

But behind the festivities, the community’s mindset has changed dramatically. The relaxed and romantic attitude of “spending Bitcoin” back then has been replaced by a nearly religious “HODL” culture. Most people are no longer willing to spend even 0.001 BTC, because “it might double next year.” Some even lock Bitcoin in cold wallets, worshipping it like a deity.

Interestingly, whenever Pizza Day arrives, someone always raises the old question: “What if Laszlo hadn’t spent those 10k BTC...” The answer is obvious—but if no one had spent it, Bitcoin might still be lying in some corner, never proving its viability as “peer-to-peer electronic cash.”

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The true flavor of the pizza

Laszlo later recalled that the pizza back then was the most “expensive” and meaningful meal he ever had. He doesn’t regret it. With a lunch, he demonstrated to the world what “trustless decentralized exchange” really means.

The significance of Bitcoin Pizza Day has never been about calculating how much a meal is worth in dollars, nor about how much wealth that programmer lost. It reminds us: any great thing is initially awkward, ridiculous, and insignificant.

Perhaps in another fourteen years, Bitcoin will break a million dollars, and blockchain will fundamentally change the way finance operates. By then, people will still tell this story: a programmer on a forum shouted, “Can someone help me order two pizzas?” and an era was opened.