A Programmer Who Missed Millions in Wealth by Exchanging Bitcoin for Pizza: Never Regretted It

In May 2010, a user with the nickname Laszlo posted on a Bitcoin forum, expressing a willingness to exchange ten thousand Bitcoins for two large pizzas. At that time, Bitcoin had just emerged, and people were still quite unfamiliar with this "digital cryptocurrency" online, and the concept of trading had not yet formed. Therefore, this post initially did not attract much attention, and only a few users expressed interest, but due to geographical reasons, the transaction could not be completed.

At that time, 10,000 Bitcoins were worth about $30, which made Laszlo doubt whether his offer was too low. It wasn't until four days later, on May 22, that Laszlo replied on the forum saying he had successfully bought the pizza and shared a photo. This day is thus known as "Bitcoin Pizza Day".

This transaction is of significant historical importance, as it is the first physical transaction since the birth of Bitcoin, marking the point at which Bitcoin began to possess the transactional functions of a currency, rather than merely existing on the network. This transaction also has an experimental nature, aimed at testing whether Bitcoin truly has practical uses as a "currency."

In a later interview, Laszlo explained the reason for making this transaction: "I wanted to buy pizza with Bitcoin because it was free for me. I wrote this program and mined Bitcoin, and I felt like I won the internet that day - I got dinner by contributing to an open-source project. Usually, hobbies cost money, but in this case, my hobby bought me dinner."

As a programmer, Laszlo is one of the earliest people to come into contact with Bitcoin and is also a pioneer in discovering GPU mining. It is said that he quickly mined tens of thousands of Bitcoins. Blockchain data shows that Laszlo's wallet had a large influx of funds starting in May 2010, with a peak balance of 20962 BTC that month. It can be seen that the 10000 Bitcoins spent on that pizza were quickly replenished through mining. His wallet hit a historical high of 43854 BTC in June 2010, after which BTC slowly flowed out.

As the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, some netizens have been updating the latest market value of these two pizzas in the original post. In the face of the soaring price of Bitcoin, Laszlo stated in a later interview that he did not feel regret or insomnia over this purchase. In his words, he was quite happy during that time, after all, he could enjoy free pizza using a graphics card.

In fact, after completing the first transaction, Laszlo began to frequently use Bitcoin for payments, spending a total of about 100,000 Bitcoins, which is worth over 4 billion USD at today's prices. The pizza he purchased with 10,000 Bitcoins is now valued at over 260 million USD.

Laszlo has always kept a low profile and has not opened any social media accounts, so it is unknown whether he has become wealthy because of Bitcoin.

The transaction with Laszlo was made by a 19-year-old Californian named Jeremy Sturdivant. He started getting involved with Bitcoin in 2009 and mined a few thousand coins himself. Jeremy was also an early consumer of Bitcoin, often using it for payments both online and offline. According to him, those 10,000 Bitcoins were used for traveling with his girlfriend.

In 2018, Jeremy admitted in an interview that he never expected Bitcoin to appreciate so much. Nevertheless, he does not regret spending those Bitcoins. He believes that the transaction of selling pizza brought him an income of $400, which appreciated tenfold, making the deal quite worthwhile.

Laszlo has always maintained a positive attitude. This may be because his approach to Bitcoin has not changed since he joined the Bitcoin open-source community in 2010. For him, it is still just a hobby rather than a profession.

"To be honest, I feel a bit out of it because there is too much attention," he said, "I don't want to draw that kind of attention, and of course, I don't want people to think that I am Satoshi Nakamoto... I just feel it's better to treat it as a hobby. I have a normal job, and I don't want to work full-time with Bitcoin. I don't want it to become my responsibility and profession. I'm happy to be involved to this extent."

Laszlo made significant contributions to the Bitcoin community, including the development of the MacOS version of Bitcoin Core and GPU mining technology. Although the "Bitcoin Pizza" incident may not be as important as his other contributions, it has made May 22nd an unforgettable and delicious anniversary for the Bitcoin community.