Bitcoin: Looking Back

A little reminder of how our world has dramatically changed.

14 years ago, on May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz of Florida bought two pizzas at Papa John’s for 10,000 bitcoins. This was the first documented cryptocurrency purchase. Strictly speaking, since Bitcoin was not considered a currency at the time (and now it is not formally considered a currency), it was legally an exchange or barter operation.

If you imagine that Papa John’s continues to store the received bitcoins, it will turn out to be one of the most profitable deals in the history of civilization. 

Getting $700 million for two pizzas is good business!

In fact, I wasn’t going to talk about specific numbers, but I wanted to show how much our world has changed for such a short period in history.

Just imagine: 14 years ago, bitcoin and in the general cryptocurrency were considered some exotic toy for programmers. The guys from Papa John’s made a deal not out of commercial interest but out of curiosity. The programmers who began experimenting on a completely new topic also could not imagine what would happen.

There are inventions in human history that have guided civilization in a new way.

Someone invented the wheel and made humanity mobile. Someone got tired of trading goods, and he invented money. Gunpowder, radio, antibiotics, jet propulsion, microcircuits, laser were invented... We may not yet have been able to appreciate the full scope of Satoshi Nakamoto’s work, and we still use the blockchain to mint cryptocurrency and play with it in the crypto exchanges. We do not even think that its functionality can dramatically change the economy and the whole face of our civilization.

Maybe in another 14 years we’ll be looking back and smiling at the naivety of people who are willing to sell Bitcoin for a pitiful $70,000. 

Anyway, we live in interesting times, and inventions like blockchains only add some drive to it.

#Papa_ John’s #Bitcoin #blockchain