Less than two years after Satoshi Nakamoto published the nine-page Bitcoin whitepaper, a programmer from Florida called Laszlo Hanyecz, made the first-ever transaction with the cryptocurrency. His purchase was two pizzas for 10,000 BTC.
In face of global uncertainty, Bitcoin has stood the test of time and has emerged as an ingenious solution to a problem humans have been trying to solve for generations. Despite the naysayers dismissing and reining in their predictions of Bitcoin’s demise, the collective asset class has gone on to become a $2 trillion industry.
During the early days before the existence of reliable cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitcoin trades were conducted through direct communication via discussion boards and Internet Relay Chat rooms.
Around then, the BTC price was worth a few cents. As a result, trades involving transfers of thousands of BTC made sense. But today, this would be worth millions of dollars. There were some investors who were on the scene for a long haul as they realized the true value of the technology. These went on to become the rich lot of the cryptocurrency world as prices soared and the asset class became a far less risky space to invest in than a decade ago
Along with Bitcoin, blockchain technology has developed remarkably over the last decade, and java managed to generate incredible use-cases in the decentralized world.
The early investors stayed put with their BTC holdings and made it big as the cryptocurrency notched record highs. In addition to the hodlers, there were those who did their bit to educate about its use case at a time when Bitcoin was seen as a “gambling device”. Purchases like Laszlo’s helped in the growth of the burgeoning Bitcoin economy of today.
Phemex’s Tribute To The Pizza Guy
Phemex, the Singapore-headquartered exchange has piled up an astonishing 1 million users on its global crypto trading platform. In terms of Q1 this year alone, Phemex has reportedly clocked in a 156.9% growth in the number of traders on the exchange. It has also amassed a 465.2% increase in trade volumes this quarter compared to the Q1 last year.
Phemex has, time and again, prioritized the consistent addition of features, boosting of its platforms, and actively participating with the community to ensure an optimal experience.
22nd May marks the eleventh year of Bitcoin Pizza Day on the crypto calendar. On that day, the Phemex team plans to layout a lucrative opportunity for both Laszlo Hanyecz himself and the community members. Hanyecz’s lesser-known achievements include beyond his pizza purchases and have no misconceptions or regrets about his actions.
Bitcoin Pizza Man has contributed to Bitcoin much more than just buying two pizzas worth 10,000 BTC. In fact, he was responsible for an algorithm that was later added to the Bitcoin code which paved the way for graphic processing unit or GPUs mining at a time when cryptocurrency mining was done using a computer processor or CPU.
In short, Hanyecz’s contribution led to the rapid technological development with respect to the machines that maintain the Bitcoin network.
It is the era of ASIC-based systems that run on near-zero downtime to maintain a robust network. But it couldn’t have been possible without the shift to GPUs from the archaic devices that has led to the evolution of the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. While somewhat overlooked, Laszlo is a relatively unsung hero of the Bitcoin world. Phemex wants to change that and come up with a rather interesting plan to honor his purchase anniversary.
Cheesy Profits!
As a mark of respect to not just the man behind the Bitcoin Pizza Day but also to the developer who transformed Bitcoin mining, Phemex has devised a plan to offer him an opportunity to spend 10,000 BTC. Unlike a decade ago, he makes a profit and also gets to keep all of it.
This is made possible by the Singapore-based exchange’s recently released –Earn Crypto platform – an asset management service that offers traders to receive up to 10% APY in interest up to 1.5 million USDT.
All he needs to do is deposit 10,000 BTC into Phemex’s Earn Crypto platform on the Bitcoin Pizza Day and can earn nearly $110,000 in just one day. However, the team at Phemex is trying to spread the word out and let him know. Users can also avail of this offer to deliver the message to Hanyecz.
Hanyecz’s tryst with pizza didn’t end there. He went to buy nine more times, spending a total of 100,000 BTC in one summer. The programmer, however, stopped upon realizing that he couldn’t generate thousands of coins daily from his home desktop. But the impact of his purchase was beyond a funny gimmick for pizza.
The emphasis should not be on the tokens he spent or if the pizzas were overvalued. Of course, they were. But the point was to demonstrate a strong use case for Bitcoin, which he did, that too at a time when the skeptics wrote long obituaries about the cryptocurrency.
