A Bill has formerly been passed to recognize May 22 as Bitcoin Pizza Day in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. Sebastiao Melo, the mayor of the city, is credited with having approved the law around the end of August.
A tweeter user @Akva556 announced the news following a press statement on Wednesday.
Councilors Jesse Sangalli and Alexandre Bobadra were responsible for drafting the bill after attending the Bitcoin Pizza Day event organized by the local community in 2022. They were both inspired by the lectures they received that explained Bitcoin in detail.
Sangalli stated that the purpose of making Bitcoin Pizza Day official is to increase awareness of the decentralized finance innovations in the city of Porto Alegre with a current population record of 1.5 million people.
Bitcoin pizza day originated when a user from the BitcoinTalk forum by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas on May 22.
That day is seen as a turning point for crypto enthusiasts because it was the first time that Bitcoin was really used as a medium of payment. One Bitcoin was worth $0.0025 at the time, the value supplied in Bitcoins cost 41 dollars in total.
The Advancement of the Blockchain Industry in Brazil
Major Brazilian businesses are gradually making it possible for clients to begin using cryptocurrencies quickly and easily in order to diversify their assets, protect against inflation, and reduce transaction costs as crypto is fast gaining popularity in Brazil.
In August, Brazilian Bank BTG Pactual launched its own platform called ‘Mynt’ for crypto trading which became available to the public.
Amber Group, a crypto-financial startup firm also announced its intention to expand its retail trading activities into Brazil through a retail platform named WhaleFin.
The largest retail electronic payments network in the world, Visa Inc., has begun working on integrating Bitcoin services with traditional banking systems in Brazil. By so doing, Visa hopes to close the gap between crypto and the current traditional financial system.
Made popular by the book, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” the mainstream principle states that, in order to become an expert in any field, you need 10,000 hours of devotional practice in that field.
With every hour being worth every effort and not wasted.
Those 10,000 expended hours are pivotal for one to become an expert in whatever they are striving for, making those 10,000 hours quintessential to the recipe for success.
Of course, 10,000 hours can be denominated in many ways. Those 10,000 hours could be broken down to mean 417 days’ worth of hours, or three hours a day for 3,333 days, which is slightly over nine years. In 2010, 33.333 hours translates to 2,000 minutes, or the time it would take to mine 200 consecutive blocks on the Bitcoin network producing 10,000 bitcoins from block rewards.
The number 10,000 has become the universal bellwether for how we measure the amount needed of X to achieve Y. The significance of 10,000 is apparent and, while those 10,000 bitcoins used to purchase pizza may, at first glance, just seem arbitrary; it was those 10,000 bitcoins that became an allegory for its own aspirations, an argument for innovation, change and a new frontier in monetary financial decentralization. It was those 10,000 bitcoins that pushed forward a monumental moment for bitcoin, marking the first real-life use case for the nascent digital currency.
You see, there’s more to that legendary union between the world’s first cryptocurrency and everyone’s favorite food. There’s more to it than just Laszlo Hanyecz innocently using bitcoin to purchase those two large Papa John’s pizzas. There’s more to it than just Laszlo marking the first real-life bitcoin transaction. There’s more to it than just people using the “pizza infinitely cut” analogy to defend bitcoin’s supply cap.
Pizza was the perfect choice to spend those bitcoins.
It’s the flattened, leavened, wheat base of a pizza that is emblematic of bitcoin’s flattened hierarchy system.
It’s the wood-fired baking process that hardens the outer crust rim, aptly synonymous with the cryptographic burning of energy to fortify a block in the hash-based, proof-of-work process.
It’s the endless variation of sauces and toppings on top of a pizza that can be characterized as the endless layers that the Bitcoin ecosystem is rapidly building on top of the Bitcoin base network. From the tomato sauce to the mozzarella cheese and endless toppings like anchovies, mushrooms, onions, olives, pepperoni; the corollary would be Lightning, Liquid, OmniBolt, WBTC, Umbrel, Sphinx, so on and so forth.
A small pizza is called a pizzetta. A person who makes pizza is known as a pizzaiolo. A small bitcoin, or the smallest bitcoin denomination, is called a satoshi. A person who “makes” bitcoins is known as a miner.
A pizzaiolo readies the pizza dough to be truthfully kneaded leaving it undisturbed and allowed time to proof. But the proof here is not in the pudding, nor the sauce, but rather in the cryptographic hashing in Bitcoin’s proof of work, the honest kneading of a block that transpires the one and only truth.
What started among the Ancient Greeks, and then made popular in Naples, Italy, is now a popular meal option worldwide, unbiased to race, religion, ethnicity and gender.
The word “pizza” in the Lombardic word context is “bizzo” or “pizzo” meaning “mouthful,” related to the English words “bit” and “bite”.1 Bitcoin’s “bit” and “byte” is the quintessential, underlying raw information needed to transfer value from a set of 256 bits to another set of 256 bits, or 32 bytes.
In 2021, 10,000 bitcoins would have needed to be generated from 1,600 consecutive blocks, in 16,000 minutes, costing millions of dollars in resources, energy, labor, research and don’t forget the delicate precise manufacturing of ASIC chips — a culmination of more than 10,000 hours of mastery.
Each hour garners work. Each bitcoin garners much more than the proof of work.
It has been 11 years since that day when those 10,000 bitcoins — worth about $41 at the time — were used to buy pizza; but during those 11 years, Bitcoin has survived four bull/bear markets, three halvings, multiple hard forks, and constant maligned attacks by ignorant critics whose only job is to sensationalize the uninformed.
Those 10,000 hours is in no way equivalent to 10,000 bitcoins. The endless effort expended in those tireless 10,000 hours does epitomize the effort behind 10,000 bitcoins; a process that shall not be naively viewed in vain.
Bitcoin is now the most popular native digital asset and is also unbiased to jurisdiction, political faction, economic status, age and so on.
Pizza is made for the masses. Bitcoin is made for all economic classes.
It’s the melting and browning of the savory cheese that holds the whole pizza together in an asynchronous way, where each strand of cheese represents a node in the network, holding and relaying to every other strand the necessary bond of validation and truth.
Sure, Laszlo could’ve chosen to order a sandwich, McDonald’s, or even Halal food, but the mere coincidence that pizza was chosen can exemplify the accidental fate and similarities between the two. And regardless, ordering another food option wouldn’t have rolled off the tongue as nicely as…
Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day.
This is a guest post by Eric Choy. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
Bitcoin Pizza Day will take place on Saturday, May 22, 2021.
There are several ways to take advatage of promotions, contests, airdrops, and giveaways this year.
Participating users can win free pizza, free cryptocurrency, and promotional items from various companies.
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Saturday, May 22, marks the eleventh anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day. Here’s how to take part in the celebration.
What Is Pizza Day?
In 2010, early Bitcoin adopter Laszlo Hanyecz ordered two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, an amount that was worth just $25 at the time.
“I’ll pay 10,000 BTC for a couple of pizzas,” Hanyecz posted to the BitcoinTalk forums. “Like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day….You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place.”
Soon, another BitcoinTalk user accepted the offer and ordered two pizzas from Papa John’s to Hanyecz’s address.
Eleven years later, 10,000 BTC is worth more than $350 million, and the date is an annually celebrated event as it marks the first time Bitcoin was spent on a product or service.
Get Free Pizza or Free Bitcoin
Several companies are commemorating the event this year. Slice is giving away more than 2,500 pizzas across the U.S. in partnership with PizzaDAO. Meanwhile, Papa John’s is giving U.K. customers £10 of free Bitcoin when they place an order of at least £20.
Elsewhere, several exchanges are running trading contests. Binance is allowing traders to collect virtual pizza “ingredients” for a chance to win Bitcoin, and Gate.io is running a similar contest.
Additionally, crypto companies are rewarding engagement on social media. Paxful, BZ Africa, and Beldex will give users who describe or design their ideal pizza a chance to win crypto. Huobi, OceanEX, CoinTiger, and Sesterce are giving away free cryptocurrency to those who retweet or share contest announcements.
Gemini UK and OKCoin are giving away free pizza vouchers, while BitBuy is giving away UberEats gift cards to users.
Other Related Events
The deals do not end there: YouHodler is giving away a free Tesla to commemorate Pizza Day; users who put more than $1,000 into the loan service will be entered in the draw. Ballet is giving away pizza keychains to customers who buy a metal wallet.
Collectors of non-fungible tokens can also buy crypto NFTs from various projects, such as RarePizzas and CryptoPizza.
Finally, some companies are donating to charitable causes. Fidelity Digital Assets will donate to Global Food Banking, while Anthony Pompliano’s recently launched Bitcoin Pizza brand will donate to the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund.
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this author held less than $75 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.
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May 22 is now forever known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, the holiday marking the date in 2010 when the first real-world good was bought with the first decentralized digital money.
Yet like every holiday, be it Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day, Bitcoin Pizza Day might say more about those celebrating it today than any of the actual historical facts. Indeed, there remain those who view the holiday as passé or even against the values of the Bitcoin community.
What remains true is that by May 2010, Bitcoin had a small, but growing economy, one where bitcoin were still mostly traded peer-to-peer and on some small exchanges.
Eager to push the frontier of Bitcoin commerce further, Laszlo Hanyecz, an early developer and miner, put out the call that he was willing and ready to pay 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, should someone be willing to take him up on the trade.
Bitcoin user Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant would agree to the terms, and two Papa John’s pies would arrive at Hanyecz’s house shortly thereafter. History was made — but some supporting facts have been lost to time.
In honor of the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, we’ve compiled a list of lesser-known facts about what’s perhaps the most famous of Bitcoin holidays.
At this year’s bitcoin price high of $63,000, the two pizzas were worth $630 million.
1) 10,000 BTC Was Worth Just $41 At The Time Of Purchase
Though data on the early Bitcoin economy is getting hard to come by, according to Bitcoin user ender_X, Hanyecz could have traded his bitcoin on an exchange for U.S. dollars … about $41 to be exact. Should the figures be accurate, that puts the price per bitcoin at roughly $0.004 — or four-tenths of a penny — at the time of sale.
While that’s figure isn’t exactly zero, the price was low enough for ender_X to think Hanyecz might be getting the better of the deal, his post ending with the quip — “good luck on getting your free pizza.”
2) Hanyecz Had To Wait Four Days To Get His Pies
Sure, it’s not as impressive as Satoshi waiting nearly 11 months for bitcoin to establish a price, but by conventional food delivery standards, Hanyecz waited a while for his order.
In fact, Hanyecz first posted on the Bitcoin.org forums on Tuesday, May 18, at the time writing:
“I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later … If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.”
Even so, he didn’t end up getting his pizza until Saturday. By Friday, some were even to reach out about Hanyecz’s health, with user BitcoinFX asking if he was “getting hungry.”
“I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in bitcoins,” Hanyecz replied.
Jercos would help him complete the delivery the next day, the transaction taking place at around 2:16 p.m. EST, according to Blockchain.com records supported by Bitcoin Talk.
3) Hanyecz Bought More Than Two Pizzas For Bitcoin
Hanyecz didn’t just stop with two pizzas, however. Enticed by the response, Hanyecz sought to push the limit in June, adding to his popular post that the deal was “an open offer.”
“I will trade 10,000 BTC for 2 of these pizzas any time as long as I have the funds (I usually have plenty),” he wrote on June 12. “If anyone is interested please let me know.”
Rumor has it that there were other pizza-order exchanges, and there’s some evidence to hint this might be the case, with Hanyecz bringing his open offer to a close in August.
“Well I didn’t expect this to be so popular but I can’t really afford to keep doing it since I can’t generate thousands of coins a day anymore,” he wrote. “Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I’m kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.”
That’s not to say he put his pizza-buying past behind him fully. In 2018, Laszlo became the first person to buy a pizza over the Lightning Network, though he paid just 0.00649 BTC at the time.
4) Jercos Eventually Sold His Bitcoin
As the Bitcoin Pizza Day holiday grew, it wasn’t long before Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant would be thrust back into the limelight. He’d give his only interview to a website called “Bitcoin Who’s Who” in 2015, five years after the trade.
To the likely dismay of current HODLers, Sturdivant said at the time “a currency is meant to be spent,” noting that the 10,000 BTC he received “made it back into the economy quickly” by the time they were worth about $400 in total.
“Naturally there will always be people hoarding coins, trying to get rich, and quite a few people did get quite rich, but they wouldn’t have got that way without economic growth allowing it,” he said, noting he felt Bitcoin was meant to be more akin to a PayPal or Stripe.
Sturdivant added some other notable details about the transaction, which he says was finalized over IRC while noting he was just 19 years old at the time of the trade.
5) Bitcoin Pizza Day Wasn’t Widely Celebrated At First
While Bitcoin Pizza Day is widely known today, records about any celebrations are scarce before 2014. That isn’t exactly surprising, as before 2013 awareness of Bitcoin was low.
It appears that Hanyecz’s story was popularized in part by a New York Times article and subsequently boosted in 2014 by a blog and tweet from the @Bitcoin twitter handle.
Due to the price of bitcoin, then testing $1,000, the story went national in the U.S., with major media outlets like ABC News joining TechCrunch, Slate and The Wall Street Journal in popularizing the transaction.
Still, as on display in the WSJ post, there was a certain slant taken, with the holiday popularized as a way to scold “bitcoin hoarders” who wanted to use the technology as a store of value as opposed to a payment method, a tension among users that continues to this day,
6) Bitcoin Pizza Day Wasn’t The First “Bitcoin Holiday”
That’s right, Bitcoiners have been creating holidays for almost as long as the technology has been around, the first commemorative date set in 2011.
At the time, Bitcoin users were keen to mark the disappearance of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who had recently stepped down from his role as project lead, declaring April 28, 2011, “Satoshi Disappear Day.”
“I propose we make a bitcoin holiday in honor of our legendary anonymous founder and to observe the fact that the bitcoin community will be just fine after the inventor of bitcoin left,” wrote user Kiba at the time.
Though Bitcoin Pizza Day occurred a bit earlier, it took some time for it to become a holiday, most likely because the price had yet to really rise. It’s worth noting also that Bitcoin Pizza Day in some ways seems to coincide with the “Bitcoin for payments” narrative pushed by industry businesses from 2014 through 2016.
7) You Can Still See The Pictures Of The Real Bitcoin Pizzas
Wondering what multimillion-dollar pizzas actually looked like? Wonder no more.
Thanks to Hanyecz’s penchant for photography, we have well-kept records of just what these expensive pies looked like at the time they were eaten in 2010.
Hanyecz posted a total of five pictures of his food, which appear to have a variety of less than traditional toppings, including olives, jalapeños, whole tomatoes and more.
