10 Buffalo Business Autumn 2018
B Y K E V I N M A N N E
MONEY — FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE.
When Laszlo Hanyecz logged onto the Bitcoin
Talk forums in 2010 and draed a message offering
10,000 bitcoin in exchange for two large pizzas, he
set the stage for a historic deal.
"You can make the pizza yourself and bring it
to my house or order it for me from a delivery place,
but what I'm aiming for is getting food delivered
in exchange for bitcoins," the programmer from
Florida wrote.
Four days later, fellow forum user Jeremy
Sturdivant phoned in an order
from the U.K. to a Papa John's in
the U.S., had two pizzas deliv-
ered to Hanyecz's house and
received bitcoin in return —
successfully completing the
world's first documented bit-
coin transaction.
To this day, the cryptocurrency community
celebrates "Pizza Day" each May 22. There's even
a Twitter account, @bitcoin_pizza, that commem-
orates the transaction by tweeting out the value of
10,000 bitcoin each day. In 2010, those bitcoin were
worth around $41, making it a pretty good deal for
the pizza buyer even then. But when bitcoin peaked
in late 2017, those two pizzas were worth more than
$190 million.
That simple transaction marked the practical
implementation of a radical new idea — that curren-
cy could be controlled by the people, without inter-
mediation from banks or government. But as most
of us struggle to understand what bitcoin is and how
it works, an entire field is emerging from this new
technology, including more than 1,700 other crypto-
currencies, numerous wallet and storage startups,
and entirely new ventures based on blockchain, the
technology that makes bitcoin work.
THE RISE OF
The two pizzas
purchased for 10,000
bitcoin in 2010. In late
2017, 10,000 bitcoin
was valued at more
than $190 million.
Photo: Laszlo Hanyecz
