Assets, Bitcoin

How Did Laszlo Hanyecz Get Bitcoin?

On May 22, 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. It was the first time the virtual currency had been used to buy something in the real world.

Hanyecz, who lived in Florida at the time, made the purchase by finding someone willing to accept bitcoins in exchange for delivering two Papa John’s pizzas to his house. The story of Hanyecz’s pizza purchase is widely considered to be the moment when Bitcoin went from being an academic concept to a real currency that could be used to buy things.

At the time of the purchase, Hanyecz was working on an early version of Bitcoin’s software and he has been active in the Bitcoin community ever since. In an interview with The New York Times in 2014, Hanyecz said that he had mined about 80,000 bitcoins before using them to buy the pizzas.

At today’s prices, those 80,000 bitcoins would be worth more than $700 million. Hanyecz has said that he doesn’t regret making the purchase, even though he could have become a millionaire if he had held onto his bitcoins instead.

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins.

At today’s prices, those 10,000 bitcoins would be worth more than $70 million.

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