Knoxville Bitcoin Network will be hosting a Bitcoin Pizza Day Meetup on March 22, 2022. This idea was brought up in our group chat and the event will serve as a way to pay homage to the legend of Bitcoin Pizza Day.
For those unfamiliar with Bitcoin Pizza Day, this is the day the first Bitcoin transaction was made in exchange for another real world item: pizza. On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid someone 10,000 bitcoin to order him two large Papa John’s pizzas. Yes, you read that right, 10,000 bitcoin.
As fellow Bitcoiners, we are also hoping to use this Sunday as a way to not only gather local Bitcoiners to join us in eating delicious pizza (which will be paid for in bitcoin), but to also orange-pill the staff of a locally owned and operated pizza place in Knoxville, Tennessee. Continuing bitcoin adoption is paramount, even if it’s one small pizza-shop owner at a time.
More than a decade has passed since the original Bitcoin Pizza Day, and for some people it is inconceivable to even spend 1 satoshi (the smallest unit of bitcoin) on anything for fear of the value of the satoshi being much higher in the future. (Those two pizzas from 2010 are now worth $302.6 million at the time of writing.) However, we believe that purchasing pizza with bitcoin by Hanyecz is a vitally important part in the history of Bitcoin for several reasons: This purchase manifested the idea that we could have a monetary network in which goods and services can be purchased with bitcoin, while also opening up an entire new set of ideas and possibilities for what Bitcoin could achieve if enough people began to adopt it. With such a bleeding-edge use of an already nascent technology, Hanyecz — although missing out on over $300 million in today’s funny money — was crucial in allowing further progression of bitcoin as a monetary asset with a real world, measurable value. For this, we thank you.
If you zoom out, you, too, will begin to realize that even spending bitcoin worth $30,000 on pizza isn’t worth it in 10 years, unless you replenish your satoshis after consumption. Twelve years ago, two pizzas cost 10,000 bitcoin; today, a large pizza worth $20 only costs you roughly 0.0006 bitcoin, or 60,000 satoshis. Quite a stark difference from 12 years ago! The question then becomes, what does a pizza cost 12 years from today when priced in bitcoin? However, it is important to spend your bitcoin, just as you would use a fiat currency, and with Lightning this is now more of a reality than ever before. As a Bitcoiner, it is a responsibility to support anyone who is willing to accept bitcoin, and yes, this means spending it. The more user touch points a non-Bitcoiner has with a slick user interface, user experience and instant settlement, the more this “Bitcoin thing” begins to make sense to them. The value add is real, and the atmosphere has a palpable feel of excitement — this is the magic of Bitcoin adoption in real time. Hanyecz took a proverbial bullet for all of us, but in doing so, allowed the maturation of the hardest money on Earth to continue. This Sunday, we pay our respects!
This is a guest post by Shane Kotz. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.