Topic: Did Laszlo Hanyecz see it as 10,000 BTC or as $41? (Read 569 times)

This is the logical thing to do. There is a lot of repetition on the forum about 1BTC= 1BTC which is nonsense because it is either a tautology that does not contribute anything or it is simply false because of the purchasing power.

The purchasing power of 10,000BTC at that time was enough for two pizzas, period. At that time Lazlo would see it as $41 or as two pizzas but he sure wouldn't see it as $250M which is the purchasing power they have now.

Yep, that's normal and most people prefer to spend their first salary or first money they make just to celebrate their day. Many people are talking about Laszlo had spent his 10,000 BTC only to bought 2 pizzas, but they forgot if they don't know how many BTC Laszlo had at that time.

I believe Laszlo is holding more than 10,000 BTC because I don't think anyone will use all of their money for unnecessary thing.

Of course. It's totally weird to see someone accept BTC as payment method, back at the time when almost nobody knew about it. The pizza guy would've rejected Mr. Hanyecz's Bitcoin payment outright. He was a true believer of BTC to have received the payment without remorse. Maybe the pizza guy is now a wealthy person? That is assuming he held onto the 10k BTC paid by Mr. Hanyecz up to this point.

Anyways, you can see that BTC was really put up to good use back in its early days. Now there are many merchants accepting it as payment method for goods and services. What you need to ask yourself is if market price matters when spending your BTC? If you use BTC as digital cash, that won't be a concern for you. But if you rely on BTC as an investment, that's another story. At least we know BTC won't be going anywhere thanks to its decentralized and censorship-resistant design. Just my opinion

Yes, because if not because of him, I think BTC will struggle to be adopted. He did check the value of BTC first. The owner of those pizza checked it as well to be sure that the deal is fine and the pizza owner won't lose. 10k BTC or 20.50 USD for 2 boxes of pizza is still a great deal that time so I am sure any pizza owner will bite it as long as they know or laszlo himself educate them if where they can trade the Bitcoin because it wasn't that famous that time.

BTC value is measured on USD or other local currencies so those who engage in Bitcoin will see or total the number of Bitcoins they have to their local currency unless if local currencies will be gone one day and will be replaced by just Bitcoin.

It was a sacrifice for the greater good. He was one of the early adopter of BTC. What he has done for us and for the world is not comparable. Why would he regret? For using up 10K BTC? Look at Bitcoin now. Top 1! This is his achievement, as he has paved the path for us, and we are still walking on it.
How much can you ask for in life rather than watching your dreams come true? I would feel bad, no doubt, but the joy to see what you have worked so hard becoming true is nothing compared to that sadness.
History isn't made by doing small things. You need to push your limits. Now, it may seem a huge amount for those 2 pizza. But the value we see for Bitcoin, today, has to do something with that event. So it's a win-win situation, no doubt.

I think he saw it as ‘I ran this program on my computer for a couple days and got a couple of free pizzas, cool.’

When I first started mining BTC, that’s how I thought. I’d let my computer run for a week and then I’d get an ounce of silver in the mail. It was amazing. I didn’t think of it as a $ amount or a BTC amount. I thought of it as X amount of work to get Y. I’m hindsight, I should have obviously coveted BTC like it was my next breath.

Yes but you get my point right? If I was a pizza baker and someone called me at that time asking whether it is ok to pay me with some unspent outputs on the Bitcoin blockchain lol, I would have probably said f*** off! It's a completely different story if the person would have obviously had some technical background, but without discrediting the pizza baker,  the chance that the guy had any idea whatsoever in 2010 or even googled it before is very close to zero. I would think that someone is making fun of me. Now there is a little possibility that the pizza guy is a risk-taking guy and thought like, who cares why not?

But as you said, they must have also taken the time to set up a wallet for him. I don't know much about the background though, who knows maybe the pizza guy was already informed and actually offered to take Bitcoin. Whatever the true background is, it will remain one of the key stories in the history of Bitcoin forever.

If the 10,000 BTC was worth $41 at that time and it was just some little change for Laszlo to spare on pizza since he was a miner. At that time he should have atleast about $1000+ worth of BTC, and I don't think he regrets it. Being the man that bought the most expensive pizza in history is someone one should be proud of 😊

Laszlo has made history, No doubt many people would have done the same mistake as Laszlo had did but only he will be remembered because he is the first one. As you mentioned, he felt no regret, because he had a clear mind and he was free of greed. These are some of his statements. souce
This statement might clear your question, because what i think is, he did not see it as 10,000 BTC or as $41 dollars. He was like, there is is no scope in this thing then why would i hold it for nothing. To be very honest, i have this feeling/thought in me, like once i sold some assets to buy a new phone and at that time those assets were around $50 dollars maybe (i know these are not enough to buy a phone but i need only these) I can arrange those $50 dollars from anywhere else but i thought why not them, they are just lying there with no use, i have to use them. (ohh, that's was my feeling before selling them and after few weeks those $50 dollars were around $2500, hehe.) Then i understood that, my mind was stuck on those assets to be get them used.

I think the same feeling was of sir Laszlo have back then and he must be feeling regret on his decision because i as a human lost only $2500 dollars and was angry on myself but he lost a chance to earn millions of dollars and that must have to make him feel regret. Well, if he is not, that's a good thing like what he can do now, other than moving on.

OP wasn't merited so it's a pointless thread for him in the final analysis.

He did not regret the selling of his bitcoin because may be hi had more bitcoin than this and it was a little amount out of that. I think that there is no need of anything if you cannot make use of it like that of bitcoin so Laszlo originates that way of utilizing bitcoin in a form of payment. He created a system by selling his bitcoin that with more use cases of bitcoin it will be accepted more and will be more worthy.


Yes exactly no one will spend his whole wealth just for 2 pizzas like if we talk about fiat so we will not use our whole salaries for just one meal but we will manage it to spend whole month.  So it indicates that he didn't have any sense of greed and he used his bitcoin to make the payment system easy and it's really good to use it.

I was asking myself about that too. How would someone accept BTC as payment method at a time it was only known by a select few? The pizza guy must've truly believed in BTC, especially when many thought it was a fad or something temporary that would quickly fade away into oblivion. Anyways, it was brave enough for Mr. Hanyecz to spend a hefty sum of BTC on two pizzas even if that wasn't much in Fiat terms at the time of purchase. If he wanted to be rich, he would've held his coins until today. At current market prices, 10k BTC would be equal to $300,000,000. That's insane!

At least, BTC was put to good use (which is digital cash). No matter its price, Bitcoin will always be there to bring you true financial freedom. Just my thoughts

What other history are we going to make, if presumably, we all bitcoin Laszlo as you said, Laszlo already took it all to himself 😅.

Anyways, it is true, maybe not all of us, but majority of us see and value our bitcoin in its dollar value, this i believe is one of the reasons why It is very much easier to spend, personally, each time I look at my my coins in its value as a coin, maybe I own 0.01 bitcoin and I value it as 0.01 bitcoin, I usually realize how little the amount of bitcoin I own is, and as such, I am reluctant to spend it, when I look at the dollar value, I am comfortable to spend 5 or 10 dollar worth off it.

Yes he certainly saw it in fiat value, but what I still find interesting is that he actually found a pizzeria that took the Bitcoin as a form of payment. Imagine you would call your pizza guy in 2010, nobody knows anything about Bitcoin and you tell the pizza guy that you are paying with "Bitcoin". Unless they know each other, which pizza guy would agree to take Bitcoin? He must have known at least a little bit about it or how would I even know what this Bitcoin is, what it is worth, where I can use it or trade it. I guess my Italian restaurant around the corner would ask me if I am joking (at least back at the time).

But looking back doesn't make too much sense. For entertainment reasons, yes, but I know quite some people who sold way too early. I am sure there are many people here on this forum who sold way below the ATH we saw in 2021. It's not necessarily about selling 100% of your holdings, but even parts of it would hurt. Resisting to sell is tough when you see those amazing numbers during those bull runs.

I'm sure Mr. Hanyecz wasn't thinking about BTC's price in Fiat terms at the time of purchase. He was using BTC as digital cash. At the time, no one expected Bitcoin to become as popular as it is right now. It didn't come to mind BTC would become worth thousands of dollars (in USD) 14 after its inception. Satoshi never intended Bitcoin to be used as a store of value anyways. He created Bitcoin to be used as an alternative to existing Fiat subject to corruption and manipulation by central banks around the world. Using BTC to pay for food, is one of the many use cases the pioneer cryptocurrency has.

I think Laszlo Hanyecz won't regret spending his 10K BTC worth nothing at the time (compared with today's market price). We should be thinking the same way as he did, by depending on BTC as digital cash. Not as a means to get rich in the long term. BTC has been a widespread success after all these years, so I'm pretty sure it'll become much more valuable in the future. Maybe it will get to replace Fiat in the long run? Just my thoughts

He was just willing to make that transaction so it doesn't matter how he must have seen it but I think it was bitcoin not converting how much worth it would be in dollars.It was not so much popular at that time and they want to see it as payment method so made this offer of 10,000 BTC for two large pizzas but now it's too big that we have it as most expensive pizzas transactions.

I think lazlo also saw the possibility to make a marketing stunt for bitcoin as he was the first person to publicly spend bitcoin on goods. This will bring more value to bitcoin as lazlo could ever loose. The easiest thing would be to simply ask him, since he is here on the forum.

Thats it, past present and future, we all have spent, are spending and will at some
tome spend Bitcoin in exchange for something else we want or need.

In todays eyes we see 10,000 BTC as an astronomical FIAT value, Laszlo saw a
chance to buy pizza with Bitcoin. Its easy to overlook that concept and focus on the now.

It is a moment in Bitcoin time, a historical point but we are everyday making those
moments for people in the future to look back at our transactions.

Stupid question, do you currently see those pizzas as 0,0014 BTC or as 41 USD? It does not matter since that is simply how the price was at this time. Even if he saw it at time as 10.000 BTC then he would not value it higher than 41 USD. Same as you would with 0,0014 BTC today.

What Laszlo did will remain forever in the history of bitcoin but of course he had to look also at the USD value because, whether we like it or not, we need a reference to decide the value of a certain item. He could've offered 5,000 BTC for those 2 pizzas but then who and why would someone have accepted? And let's not forget that he just wanted to prove that you could use bitcoin to buy something real, just like you'd do with cash, so I don't think that relevant at all at the end.