Woow nice thread, I thought Laszlo Hanyecz's story started with him mining Bitcoin and buying pizza, but it seems like he was a developer and contributed to the development of Bitcoin in the early days. It's good that he's still around and has no problem appearing in front of the cameras.

A great read, although I know some of the histories that you've made about him but it's still giving me chills when reading something about a great piece of history that's related to Bitcoin.

While looking at the current value of the BTCs spent by Laszlo for pizzas, we have to realize that it's essential that he has triggered the exchange of Bitcoin through that purchase. Without that historical purchase, it wouldn't create the curiosity of many to think that something can be traded or purchased with Bitcoin. I know we're looking at the thousands of Bitcoins spent and the tremendous value of it right now, but without his great contribution to that exchange, there could be someone else who has done that but we don't know, it's just going to remain another what if. And the valuable lesson we can learn from this history is about the power of holding. When 10k Bitcoins can purchase pizzas before, the lesser amount of Bitcoin now or so can purchase more than what we can expect in the future. Real estate, luxury cars, everything that truly are life-changing.

I believe people would very much appreciate hearing from him. It'd be completely respectable if he refuses to say a word, but I think it'd be an honor for the young Bitcoiners to take an interview with him, just like zasad@ did a couple of years ago, in here.

If I could ask him just one question, it'd be: "why did you leave Bitcoin?". He was so passionate at first, but then something seemed like it underwhelmed him about Bitcoin.

I don't believe he left Bitcoin and he can simply mine bitcoin, invest in bitcoin, hold it, but he no longer has interest to be one of most famous noisy public figures in Bitcoin community.

Saying you leave something is easy and it's hard for community to verify that you actually leave it. You can do many things silently and privately, disappear from the community.
Pizzas for bitcoin?
Did Laszlo Hanyecz exchange 40000 BTC for 8 pizzas, not 10000 BTC for 2 pizzas?

It is a topic on Bitcoin pizza with some information that he did not trade only 10,000 BTC for pizzas but more than that.

The man behind Bitcoin pizza day is more than a meme: He's a mining pioneer.

Thanks for sharing, and for making it clear to everybody how the man isn't just about pizza. He was an early believer, made significant contributions, earned a lot, and kickstarted the Bitcoin economy. But I doubt he spent everything he mined. I hope those "little bit of single digit change" that he declared was left on him would actually add up to more than 10BTC. And while he might have left mining, I doubt he left Bitcoin for good.

Here's a fun fact about Laslzo - he may be Satoshi  

Martti Malmi was the first developer of Bitcoin and helped Satoshi, he released some email correspondence between them during a recent court case: https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/

Within these emails, there's this message from Martti to Satoshi:


This address only ever received coins once, in 2018: https://mempool.space/tx/6243edcfd99a56bbe9f89afad63c0f839c342847c62166b3e3ece1a0e1f26b8e

Who was the sender? 157fRrqAKrDyGHr1Bx3yDxeMv8Rh45aUet, the address in Laszlo's signature. This either means Laszlo is Satoshi, or Martti gave this same address to Lazslo almost a decade after he gave it to Satoshi.

Man this is one of the best threads ive read on bitcointalk in a while, I assumed it would be short but its very long and detailed. I learnt lots about the Bitcoin Pizza guy that I didn't know previously.

Sure he spent alot of bitcoins for those pizza's. But keep in mind it was the first transaction which proved bitcoin can be used for goods and services and it caught on perhaps because of this purchase. Who knows if bitcoin would be the same if it never had this transaction, hard to tell.

He sure is a bitcoin legend. Never knew he ported the bitcoin software to a macOS, pretty crazy in the short time frame.

Laszlo is indeed a living legend, as much as i personally do feel that some times, he might just think back to the days when bitcoin was worth nothing, how he spent those 10k bitcoins on two pizzas, then think back to this day and realize how much those 10k bitcoins are worth today, and then regret that action.

But this is just me assuming, I watched quite a number of his interviews on YouTube and each time he was asked if today, he regrets spending that number of bitcoins on pizza, he always starts with a smile, and then he would answer and say that he does not regret any of such thing that he did.
I am particularly proud the man, it's almost like Satoshi created bitcoin, but Laszlo gave bitcoin it's beginning value.

No. He spent ~$41 USD for the pizzas because that's how much 10,000 BTC were worth back then.

The value at the time is what matters, recalculating it over and over is meaningless.

If the HODL narration was so strong in this early days, Bitcoin would be still sub one dollar because no one would use it on DNM back in the days and so no one would heard of it.

People hear this pizza story and say to them self "I won't be that guy" so they HODL instead of using Bitcoin.
If people just used it, the price would skyrocket.

The spread of this story with recalculated value is hurting Bitcoin true adoption.

For the looks of this pizzas I'd say he made a pretty good deal.
More people should enjoy freedom cryptocurrencies give instead of pretending to be "investors" while not knowing anything outside this small circle of echoes.

I use cryptocurrencies whenever it's possible, for many online subscriptions and donations. I don't care it may be worth 1000x more tomorrow or in 10 years.
If you HODL long enough you won't have any time left to enjoy it, so forget about this "billion dollar pizza" and enjoy what Laszlo has enjoyed years ago.

Don't wait for the revolution, Be the revolution.

You don't get it, at all.