The 2010 pizza trade and modern bitcoin value

The early pizza transaction

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two large Papa John’s pizzas. He posted an offer on a Bitcoin forum for "two large ones so I have some left over for the next day." Jeremy Sturdivant, a 19-year-old forum user, accepted the offer, ordered the pies, and delivered them to Hanyecz’s house. Those 10,000 BTC cost approximately $41 at the time. I find the sheer scale of that transaction’s growth impossible to ignore. When Bitcoin hit its all-time high price of $126,198.07 on October 6, 2025, those same 10,000 Bitcoins would have reached a massive valuation of approximately $1.26 billion for the programmer who originally bought the pizzas. In 2021, the pizzas would have been worth $680 million at the peak, and by 2023, the amount would have reached $270 million. Hanyecz has no regrets about the exchange because Bitcoin had no real value back then. He was a programmer from Florida and an early Bitcoin advocate who built the first macOS port of Bitcoin Core. His purchase was a deliberate demonstration that Bitcoin could function as a medium of exchange rather than a technical curiosity.

Volatility and the dormant whale

Bitcoin price swings define the asset’s history. On July 15, 2026, a wallet inactive for more than eight years moved 5,908 Bitcoin worth roughly $383 million at a price of $64,800. This holder received the coins in December 2017 when Bitcoin traded at $16,000. This move followed a period where Bitcoin lost nearly 50% of its value from the October 2025 peak, which was $126,198.07. The wallet, identified as "138EM…ReyiT," moved funds to an address starting with "bc1q." This newer format provides lower fees. During the first quarter of 2026, Bitcoin faced its third-worst opening quarter on record, closing down 23.2%. This decline followed U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on February 28, which trapped Bitcoin between $60,000 and $75,000 for much of March. This instability also saw spot Bitcoin ETFs bleed $4.5 billion in outflows across the first eight weeks of that year. The $200 billion market cap drop happened within hours of those policy announcements.

Purchasing power and the cost of spending

The high opportunity cost of spending Bitcoin creates a constant tension in the market. In 2024, the 10,000 BTC stack held a value of $674 million, but it reached $1.106 billion in 2025. Anyone who spent 1 BTC on a $20,000 car in December 2017 effectively paid $126,000 for that car in October 2025 purchasing power terms. I think the $328 million Bitcoin haircut the 10,000 BTC stack took from its 2025 peak remains a grim reminder of crypto volatility. Bitcoin reached its highest price ever of $126,198.07 on October 6, 2025, but it fell to $107,000 just four days later after President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports. This drop occurred as the total crypto market capitalization fell nearly $200 billion in a single, massive session. You should recognize that Bitcoin’s extreme volatility makes it a risky asset for short-term needs. In 2024, even 0.01 BTC had the purchasing power of $1,000, which was enough to cover a month of groceries in most U.S. cities. Over the last decade, Bitcoin’s value climbed more than 15,000%. The market cap for Bitcoin is about $1.33 trillion, which is well ahead of Ethereum’s $233 billion market cap. If Hanyecz had held those coins instead of buying lunch, would the Bitcoin community even exist today?