Key Takeaways:

  • Most people know Bitcoin Pizza Day as the tale of 10,000 BTC spent on two pizzas. According to Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo, this was a deliberate early attempt to showcase Bitcoin's real-world utility in everyday life.

  • During the live stream of Binance's Bitcoin Pizza Day at Binance Square, Rizzo shared some lesser-known facts from Bitcoin's early history—specifically about the unexpected role that Satoshi Nakamoto may have played in inspiring Pizza Day itself.

  • More than 16 years later, Bitcoin Pizza Day remains one of the most recognizable milestones in the crypto industry. Want to know more? Check out the full live stream on Binance Square.

Every year on May 22, the crypto community celebrates Bitcoin Pizza Day — the anniversary of the first known real-world purchase made with Bitcoin, when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz famously spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas in 2010.

But there's more to this story than most people know.

During Binance's live stream leading up to Bitcoin Pizza Day on Binance Square, Bitcoin historian and content creator Pete Rizzo — also known simply as The Bitcoin Historian — shared lesser-known details about the early days of Bitcoin: from how BTC got its first price to why Pizza Day might have been partially inspired by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. One of the few people who personally knows Laszlo, Rizzo has documented the earliest moments in Bitcoin's history for years.

1. Laszlo likely spent 40,000 BTC on pizza — not just 10,000

The famous transaction involved 10,000 BTC for two pizzas. But that might have just been the beginning.

"Many love to say he spent 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas," Rizzo said. "From what we know, he actually spent around 40,000 Bitcoin on up to eight pizzas."

After the first successful transaction, it seems Laszlo repeated the experiment. At that time, Bitcoin was still a niche project shared by a relatively small group of developers and enthusiasts — with no exchanges, no institutions, and minimal public attention. No wonder it was trading for less than a cent.

Rizzo believes the goal was to kickstart Bitcoin's movement in the real world. And Laszlo had the means to do so. As one of the first miners to use GPU (graphics cards) instead of standard laptop processors, on-chain evidence suggests he could mine around 80,000 BTC on his own.

"Satoshi wanted people to transact," Rizzo said, "and Laszlo did just that."

2. Satoshi may have indirectly inspired Bitcoin Pizza Day

Satoshi Nakamoto might have had a more direct connection to Pizza Day than most people realize.

The very first Bitcoin.org website — created by Satoshi and early participant Martti Malmi — contained a simple FAQ section about how Bitcoin could work as money in the real world.

"If you go way back in the Wayback Machine, there's an FAQ that describes what makes Bitcoin money — and it uses pizza to illustrate that point," Rizzo explained.

They also communicated on the forum, where Satoshi personally encouraged Laszlo to do something with his Bitcoin.

"My theory is that Laszlo was actually inspired by Satoshi's own writings," Rizzo said. "Pizza Day is almost a collaboration between Satoshi and Laszlo."

3. Initially, Bitcoin had no price — someone had to come up with it

Today, Bitcoin trades worldwide on hundreds of exchanges. But in the early stages, there was no market price — because no one had set it yet.

One of the first to solve this problem was an early community member known only as New Liberty Standard. Lacking market data for benchmarking, he defined Bitcoin's first exchange rate based on the cost of electricity for mining — arriving at about 1,600 BTC for $1.

"He had to calculate how much he thought his Bitcoin was worth — Bitcoin's price came out to around 0.0008 cents," Rizzo said.

And thus began the price formation for the world's largest cryptocurrency — starting from someone calculating their electricity bill.

4. Over time, Laszlo also helped pave the way for Lightning payments

In 2018, eight years after the initial pizza purchase, Laszlo returned to make history again — completing one of the first real transactions on the Lightning Network, Bitcoin's second-layer solution for faster and cheaper payments. The purchase once again was pizza.

In other ways, Laszlo largely remained under the radar since 2010. But after Rizzo gave a speech during his induction into the Bitcoin Hall of Fame at PubKey in New York, Laszlo wrote him an email saying he reviewed it.

"He did more than most people know — perhaps more than anyone, including Satoshi," Rizzo said.

Summary

Pizza Day is often served as a joke about expensive food. But it wasn't a mistake — it was a deliberate first step: Satoshi laid out the plan, and Laszlo was the one who dared to execute it publicly.

Sixteen years later, Bitcoin is a global asset held by institutions, governments, and millions of people worldwide. The path to real adoption began with two pizzas and a forum post.

Watch the full conversation with Pete Rizzo on Binance Square.

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