Sixteen years ago today, a Florida programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two large Papa John’s pizzas. At the time, those coins were worth roughly $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 on the BitcoinTalk forum with a straightforward offer: 10,000 BTC to anyone willing to order him two pizzas. Some forum users were skeptical — one pointed out he could sell the coins for $41 in cash.
Hanyecz’s reply was simple: “I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in Bitcoins”. Four days later, a then-19-year-old forum user named Jeremy Sturdivant accepted, ordered the pies from Papa John’s, and collected 10,000 BTC via manual transfer. Bitcoin had its first exchange rate against a consumer good.
The $328 million 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 was worth $674 million. In 2025, it hit a record $1.106 billion, with Bitcoin trading at $110,568 on that day’s all-time high. Today, with Bitcoin near $77,300, the stack sits at $777.87 million — down 29.7% from last year.
The decline began on October 6, 2025, when Bitcoin reached a fresh all-time high of $126,000. Four days later, President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports and export controls on critical U.S. software.
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.
The worst start since 2018
Q1 2026 became Bitcoin’s third-worst opening quarter on record, closing down 23.2%, with spot Bitcoin ETFs bleeding $4.5 billion in outflows across the first eight weeks of the year. Iran tensions compounded the pressure, as U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on February 28 triggered a sharp risk-off rotation, trapping Bitcoin between $60,000 and $75,000 for much of March.
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.