Bitcoin Pizza Day pioneer and first GPU miner
On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas. At the time, that was worth about $41. At Bitcoin’s peak, the same amount would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The date is now celebrated annually as “Bitcoin Pizza Day” — the first known real-world commercial transaction in Bitcoin’s history.
Hanyecz is a software developer based in Jacksonville, Florida. Before the pizza purchase, he had already ported the Bitcoin client to macOS (the first non-Windows version) and become the first person known to have mined Bitcoin with a GPU. He corresponded directly with Satoshi Nakamoto on both.
In early 2010, Hanyecz ported the Bitcoin client to macOS, making the software available on Apple’s platform for the first time. He communicated with Satoshi Nakamoto about the port, and their correspondence reveals Satoshi’s guidance on cross-platform compatibility and mining architecture.
Hanyecz was the first person known to have successfully used a GPU (graphics processing unit) to mine Bitcoin, dramatically increasing mining efficiency compared to CPU-only mining. He discussed this development directly with Satoshi, who expressed concern about an “arms race” in mining hardware, preferring that mining remain accessible to ordinary computers for as long as possible.
On May 18, 2010, Hanyecz posted on the BitcoinTalk forum offering 10,000 BTC for two large pizzas. Four days later, on May 22, 2010, a user named jercos (Jeremy Sturdivant) accepted the offer and ordered two Papa John’s pizzas delivered to Hanyecz’s home.
In February 2018, Hanyecz made another symbolic pizza purchase — this time using the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s layer-2 scaling solution. Asked years later by Cointelegraph whether he regretted the original transaction, he answered:
“You know, I don’t regret it. I think that it’s great that I got to be part of the early history of Bitcoin in that way, and people know about the pizza and it’s an interesting story because everybody can kind of relate to that…”
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Complete record of all four developers who had commit access to Bitcoin's SourceForge SVN repository. 252 revisions were recorded from August 30, 2009 to September 13, 2011.
Hanyecz recalls his Satoshi correspondence around the April 19, 2010 macOS port. The private emails are unreleased; quotes are from later interviews. He called Satoshi paranoid, bossy, and weird.
Context post by laszlo in BitcoinTalk topic 124. before msg1100.
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Hanyecz recalls Satoshi's private pushback on his May 10, 2010 BitcoinTalk GPU-mining announcement. The verifiable element is the announcement; Satoshi's side comes from Hanyecz's later interviews.
Context post by laszlo in BitcoinTalk topic 43. before msg1323.
Hanyecz recalls Satoshi reciprocating his GPU miner code by sharing his own GPU mining code, kept as defense against potential 51% attacks rather than for mining. From later interviews.
Laszlo Hanyecz posts his famous offer to pay 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas, leading to the first known real-world Bitcoin transaction on May 22, 2010 — now celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Context post by laszlo in BitcoinTalk topic 30. before msg1169.
Laszlo Hanyecz pays 10,000 BTC for two Papa John's pizzas — the first purchase of a physical good with Bitcoin. Completed May 22, 2010 and celebrated annually as Bitcoin Pizza Day. ~$41 at the time.
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Benjamin Wallace's Wired feature — an early major mainstream article on Bitcoin. Traces the whitepaper, mining boom, Mt. Gox hack, and growing pains, ending with Garzik's "We really don't care."