🍕 Today's the day. May 22 is Bitcoin Pizza Day — the unofficial holiday of the entire crypto industry. Here's the story, the math, and a few facts you probably haven't heard.
The story in one paragraph
On 18 May 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz posted on the BitcoinTalk forum offering 10,000 BTC to anyone who would send him two large pizzas. Four days later, on 22 May 2010, a user named "jercos" took him up on it, ordered two pizzas from Papa John's to Laszlo's house in Jacksonville, Florida, and got 10,000 BTC in return. At the time, that was worth about $41. It was the first known time anyone had used Bitcoin to buy something tangible — and that's why every May 22 is now Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Fun facts about Bitcoin Pizza Day
- 10,000 BTC was about $41 in May 2010. Bitcoin was trading at roughly $0.0041 per coin. Laszlo basically paid $20 a pizza.
- At today's prices, those pizzas are worth ~$1 billion. Roughly $500 million per pizza. That comes out to about $62.5 million per slice if you cut them into 8.
- Laszlo has zero regrets. He's said in multiple interviews that without that first transaction, Bitcoin might never have proven it could function as money. "Someone had to do it." He went on to spend another ~90,000 BTC over the next year buying other things.
- Papa John's didn't accept Bitcoin. Laszlo paid jercos, and jercos placed a normal credit card order. The first Bitcoin purchase was really an OTC trade where one side happened to redeem the BTC for pizza.
- jercos was 19 years old at the time. He was a college student in the UK. He sold his 10,000 BTC pretty quickly — last he publicly said, he doesn't have any of it left either.
- Laszlo also mined Bitcoin on a GPU before anyone else. He's credited as the first person to use a graphics card to mine BTC — a few weeks before the pizza order. At one point he was mining thousands of coins a day on a single rig.
- The forum thread is still online. The original post, titled "Pizza for bitcoins?", is still readable on BitcoinTalk and remains one of the most-linked threads in crypto history.
- There's a "Bitcoin Pizza Index". Sites track the dollar value of 10,000 BTC in real time, just so people can wince. On big rally days the index updates by tens of millions.
- There's a Bitcoin Pizza Day NFT. Naturally. And a dedicated Twitter/X account that posts the current pizza-cost every day.
- Lightning Network paid for pizza in 2018. The first-ever real-world Lightning transaction was — fittingly — also a pizza, paid by a developer in Hong Kong. Bitcoin really does love its pizza.
The math, if you like wincing
Let's say BTC sits at $100,000 today. Then:
- 10,000 BTC × $100,000 = $1,000,000,000 total.
- ÷ 2 pizzas = $500,000,000 per pizza.
- ÷ 8 slices = $62,500,000 per slice.
- ÷ ~12 bites per slice = ~$5,200,000 per bite.
- Cheese pull = priceless.
Why it actually matters
Bitcoin Pizza Day isn't really about the regret meme. It's about the first time anyone proved Bitcoin could function as money in the real world. Up until then it was a curiosity traded between a few hundred people. After that pizza, the network had a story: "you can buy things with this." The price of BTC roughly 10x'd in the months after.
It's also a reminder of how early everyone in crypto still is. The 2010 pizza buyer was sitting in front of an asset that would 25-million-x over the following 15 years and had no way to know it. That's the same uncertainty anyone earning small amounts of crypto today is sitting in.
Bitcoin Pizza Day on DuckTask
DuckTask pays out in real Bitcoin — both on-chain and Lightning. If you've been wanting to stack some sats without buying them, May 22 is the right day to start: complete a few offers, clear the one-time $7.50 first-cashout threshold, and pull your first satoshis straight into a real BTC wallet. You're not buying a pizza with them — but you're accumulating the same asset Laszlo handed over for two of them.
Maybe in 15 years, the few sats you withdrew today will be worth a slice of that pizza. Maybe more. That's kind of the point.
Where to go next
- Every payout method, ranked — including Bitcoin on-chain and Lightning.
- How to withdraw — first cash-out walkthrough — get your first sats out.
- Best ways to earn on DuckTask — fastest route to a withdrawal.
🍕 Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day — go grab a slice. Real one, please. The 10,000 BTC kind is sold out.