In 16 years, a Florida computer programmer called Laszlo Hányecz bought two Papa John’s large pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin. These coins, at that time, were valued at approximately $41. On this Pizza Day, they are worth $777.87 million — down $328 million from last year’s anniversary price.
Bitcoin Pizza Day, observed each May 22, marks the first commercial transaction using Bitcoin — the moment a digital currency stopped being a theoretical experiment and became a medium of exchange for real goods.
On May 18, 2010, Hanyecz posted The BitcoinTalk forum was flooded with an offer of 10,000 BTC for anyone who would order two pizzas. Some forum users were skeptical — one pointed out he could sell the coins for $41 in cash.
Hanyecz answered in the simplest way possible: “I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in Bitcoins”. Four days after that, Jeremy Sturdivant, a 19-year-old user of a forum, accepted the offer, purchased the pies at Papa John’s and received 10,000 BTC by manual transfer. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be exchanged for a good.
A $328,000,000 Bitcoin haircut
Every May 22, that fixed 10,000 BTC gets revalued at the day’s spot price — the cleanest annual benchmark crypto has. In 2024 the stack of 10,000 BTC was valued at $674,000,000. It reached a $1.106-billion record in 2025. Bitcoin was trading at $105,568 that day, the all-time highest. Today, with Bitcoin near $77,300, the stack sits at $777.87 million — down 29.7% from last year.
Bitcoin’s decline started on October 6, when it reached an all-time peak of $126,000. The decline began four days after President Donald Trump announced Imports from China are subject to 100% tariffs, and critical U.S. Software is also under export control.
Within hours, total crypto market capitalization fell nearly $200 billion in a single session, Bitcoin dropped from $122,000 to $107,000, and approximately $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated — the largest single-day liquidation event in crypto history.
This is the worst start to a year since 2018.
The first eight weeks in 2026 saw spot Bitcoin ETFs lose $4.5 billion. Q1 was the third worst quarter for Bitcoin on record. The tensions in Iran were exacerbated by the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes of February 28, which sparked a risk-off movement. trapping Bitcoin For most of the month, March, you can expect to pay between $60k and $75k.
Q2 has brought partial recovery — Bitcoin has climbed roughly 14% over the quarter — but the broader crypto market cap sits at $2.65 trillion today, down from $2.9 trillion just one week ago.
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Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
