You may call back that you have never heard of Laszlo Hanyecz, a Florida-based programmer working for online retail company GoRuck, merely y'all'd probably be incorrect — Hanyecz was behind the inspirational purchase of two pizzas from Papa John's for x,000 Bitcoin (BTC) back on May 22, 2022, making this week a celebration of Pizza Day'due south eight year anniversary.

Only the transaction did not involve only one person: Jeremy Sturdivant, likewise known as Jercos, participated in the original Bitcoin pizza deal as the recipient of those 10,000 BTC that he turned into two pizzas.

Ever since the fateful first-ever recorded transaction of Bitcoin for a concrete good, the use example for the currency has taken off, with customers now able to use Bitcoin for real estate deals, online shopping, airplane bookings and, of grade, pizza.

Cointelegraph got the chance to speak to both Laszlo and Jeremy this week about their views on Bitcoin, how they feel nearly the legacy of the "Bitcoin Pizza" and their favorite type of pizza.

Cointelegraph: You probably go asked this question a lot, but I take to inquire. Since 10,000 Bitcoin is worth around 80 million dollars today, practice you ever regret paying 10,000 BTC for ii pizzas?

LH: You lot know, I don't regret it. I recall that it'due south dandy that I got to be part of the early history of Bitcoin in that way, and people know about the pizza and it's an interesting story considering everybody can kind of relate to that and be [like] - "Oh my God, you spent all of that money!" I was also kind of giving people tech back up on the forums and I ported Bitcoin to MacOS, and you lot know, another things - fix bugs and whatnot, and I've e'er kind of but wanted people to apply Bitcoin and buying the pizza was ane way to do that. I didn't think it would go as popular as it has, only it's gotten to be a actually catchy story for people.

CT: So exercise y'all apply Bitcoin in everyday life?

LH: Yep, I do, I attempt to whenever I can. I've bought many things over the years with it, I play around with the Bitcoin software and things like that, just I endeavour to kind of go along it as a hobby.

Just I haven't really used Bitcoin much in face-to-face payments. I've done it mostly online. Information technology'due south one of those things where I like to keep an eye on it and I like to participate in online, but equally far as face up-to-face stuff, I just feel like it'due south non actually the best. It tends to be more frustrating, and the goal is that Bitcoin should become meliorate than the status quo, right?

CT: What'south your favorite cryptocurrency?

LH: Bitcoin! [Laughs]

CT: What'due south your favorite pizza?

LH: Pizza? I like Supreme.

CT: In your original postal service from the first Pizza Day, you compared your desire to purchase a pizza with buying a hotel breakfast platter. What is your ideal hotel breakfast platter?

LH: Oh, I don't know. I like eggs, salary, pancakes - you lot know, standard stuff.

Just to expand on that - the reason that I compared it that way - I was thinking of the experience of me picking up the phone and proverb "Hey, I'd like breakfast in room 123", and I merely get charged on my account and I get the food delivered to me - I don't care how they did it. Whether it's a contractor, or Papa John's, or whoever brings information technology. What I was trying to practise was make it articulate that I didn't want somebody to send me a Papa John's gift card, or a Domino's credit or anything like that - I wanted nutrient and I wanted to pay Bitcoins for food. Because if I can buy food with it, and so information technology'south it's equally existent as any other money, correct? Nutrient is a basic necessity -- if I tin can eat from Bitcoin, I tin can alive off of Bitcoin.

CT: Does your current job involve working with cryptocurrency?

LH: I don't really like engaging in information technology as a principal business, information technology's sort of a side project for me. I know that's kind of weird to explain to people, merely I experience like that keeps it more fun for me - than if it was like a nine-to-five kind of affair of "Oh, you know, permit's do some crypto business." I don't want to be 1 of those guys with like a scam ICO or something like that.

Just recently at my job, I kind of convinced people here to accept Bitcoin, and, being a developer, I integrated it on our website. Nosotros are trying to see how that goes now. People here are excited about it, they're excited about about what I'd washed and everything. And then we're trying information technology out. I'm kind of applying my hobby at work now, so that's pretty cool when you tin can do that.

CT: Take you ever thought most buying a pizza with any other cryptocurrencies as well Bitcoin?

LH: I like Bitcoin. I was around early, when it was only Bitcoin, and to me, the copycat coins or any y'all want to call them - yous know 90% of these things are only a copy-paste of Bitcoin, and they changed the logo, or they changed something. I'chiliad not that interested in those, I am interested in Bitcoin.

CT: Exercise you think that your original Bitcoin pizza purchase direct influenced the fact that y'all can now buy pizza and other food with Bitcoin?

LH: I'd like to retrieve that what I did helped. But I recall if it wasn't me, somebody else would have come along. And maybe it wouldn't have been pizza. But I think Bitcoin was kind of destined to get big, and I didn't know everything about Bitcoin dorsum and then - I mean, I had only been playing with information technology a couple months, and I figured out how to mine, I actually wrote the start GPU miner - and that's how I got all those Bitcoins that I was kind of giving away.

CT: Do you think information technology makes sense for people to use Bitcoin for kind of pizza-type purchases now?

LH: If everybody wanted to pay for pizza with Bitcoin right at present – information technology wouldn't piece of work -- they would try it, they'd realize that their transactions aren't confirming, and they'd lose interest. And that's kind of where we're at today, right?

In December, everybody was like "Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin," and then "Oh my god, my transaction has been sitting there for 12 hours, what's going on, this thing sucks!" People learned how it works and we actually saw the fee market working and all that, and so I think it'southward actually exciting, but I have no idea on how information technology's gonna go, I call up it'southward really interesting to scout.

CT: What would it have for Bitcoin to get more than widely used?

LH: I know yous guys covered it when I did the Lightning pizza thing. I experience like when something like that – the Lightning Network or something like to information technology – ends up condign mainstream, usable for people. I think that'due south where information technology'll go more than interesting to really spend bitcoins face up-to-face.

CT: How do you retrieve the Lightning Network will make Bitcoin more mainstream?

LH: The Lighting Network is not perfect either, it has problems, it can be in driveling in various ways, simply it's a step in that management, and to me, if something like Lightning Network takes off, I think yous're gonna see every online retailer just switch to it because nobody wants to utilize MasterCard, and Visa, and PayPal.

I recollect the Lightning Network is definitely the goal there, to bring more usability to people, because it actually does enable instant payments, and Bitcoin payments are not instant. If y'all're accepting with nothing confirmation of payment, yous're non really doing it correctly. And that'south okay to do if you're gonna extend trust to people – considering same thing happens with a credit card – all y'all accept is the promise today, you haven't actually gotten paid. And then in some businesses that'due south perfectly fine, but that'southward not actually the spirit of Bitcoin, y'all shouldn't accept to trust everyone, you lot should be able to say "Hey, I have this Bitcoin, and here's the cryptographic proof." The Lightning Network can as well give us dorsum some of the privacy that people originally mistakenly idea they had.

CT: In the photograph of your family eating the "Lightning Network Pizza", your children are wearing "I <3 Bitcoin" t-shirts. Exercise you educate your children near Bitcoin?

Photo

Paradigm source: Laszlo Hanyecz's February. 25 post on Lightning-dev mailing listing

LH: Liam is my son, he's 7 and Amy, my girl, is nine. They actually have their own paper wallets, they own similar a thousandth of a Bitcoin or something like that. I showed them how to go on GDAX and things like that. I just fabricated them a bookmark on their computer then that they could check the toll. I showed them how to multiply their little thousandth of a Bitcoin by the toll and things like that.

I spent time explaining information technology to them, they were similar:

- Daddy, what are you doing?

- Bitcoin.

- Oh, what'south the Bitcoin?

My kids are adequately young, I can't really explain market forces and things like that to them even so, but they understand that more than is skillful, and Bitcoin is good, and that I'one thousand involved with Bitcoin somehow. I try to become them to learn, and I think when they get older, I'll try to teach them more technical stuff.

Jercos – the homo who earned x,000 BTC by selling two pizzas

Cointelegraph likewise had the chance to speak with Jeremy Sturdivant, too known as Jercos, who participated in the original Bitcoin pizza bargain equally the recipient of those x,000 BTC that he turned into two pizzas. Sturdivant, who told CT that he turned Hanyecz's BTC into fiat for a trip when they were worth a couple of hundred dollars, noted that he yet uses Bitcoin in his everyday life "to some extent:"

"Doing independent contract piece of work brings money in a variety of forms, and I've been paid in Bitcoin, Litecoin, even Dogecoin. My local grocery stores don't take it though, then I most often find myself trading it away to put it to use, aside from online services [...] Steam, Humble store, and other video game retailers accepted Bitcoin during a lot of the times I had free time for video games. Certainly the bulk of my Steam library was paid for with Bitcoin."

When asked virtually the about amount of Bitcoin he has e'er had, Sturdivant estimated it to be shut to twoscore,000 due to both mining and trading early:

"I've never seen Bitcoin as an investment, and while information technology's piece of cake to look back and say 'I could take been a millionaire,' I think it'due south more of import to wait at the mindset I had during the pizza transaction, not being that of acquiring an investment, only of making use of a form of currency. If I was looking to hoard coins, I very probable wouldn't have been in the correct place at the right time."

Sturdivant also noted that he's also continued to buy and sell pizza in cryptocurrency using Bitcoin, Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum (ETH), and that he prefers pizza with meat and red onions, although "for a niggling controversy, I like 'Hawaiian' pizza quite a lot."