A man once spent nearly 100,000 Bitcoin on pizzas, unaware of how valuable those Bitcoins would become in the future.
When hunger strikes, nothing satisfies quite like a pizza or two.
So in 2010, when Laszlo Hanyecz craved some cheesy, tomatoey goodness, he used Bitcoin to purchase two pizzas.
On May 18, 2010, Hanyecz posted on Bitcoin Forum, offering 10,000 bitcoins in exchange for a “couple of pizzas.”
In his post, he wrote: “Like maybe two large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later.
“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 where I don’t have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a ‘breakfast platter’ at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you’re happy!”
Hanyecz then mentioned he enjoyed toppings such as “onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes [and] pepperoni,” noting that any “standard stuff” was fine, as long as there were no “weird fish topping or anything like that.”
Hanyecz could not have imagined that 10,000 bitcoins would eventually be worth far more than two pizzas—around $80 million in 2019, to be precise.
But what did Hanyecz think of this?
In a clip shared by 60 Minutes, which featured Hanyecz’s first TV interview, reporter Anderson Cooper stated that the bitcoin would now be worth “$800 million.”
He asked Hanyecz: “You spent about $800 million on pizza?”
The ‘Bitcoin pizza guy’ replied: “Well, if you look at today’s exchange rate.”
Cooper pressed on: “Are there nights you wake up where you think, ‘I could have had $800 million… if I hadn’t bought those pizzas?'”
Hanyecz responded: “I think thinking like that is… Not really good for me.”
As one Twitter user pointed out: “That’s putting it lightly.”
At the time of writing, Hanyecz might find some consolation in knowing the value of the bitcoins has since decreased to $636,113,721.89, according to Revolut.
But that doesn’t really make the situation any less painful, does it?