History of Bitcoin

I'll pay 10,000 Bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I'm aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins where I don't have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a 'breakfast platter' at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you're happy!
I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc.. just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that. I also like regular cheese pizzas which may be cheaper to prepare or otherwise acquire.
If you're interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.Ciro Santilli remembers his father always telling him how when Ciro was small, he would try to grasp the value of money by converting it into how many pizzas he could buy. Well, at least he was not alone.

User bitcoin2paysafe then asks the fundamental practical question:

In which country do you live?

and Lazslo replies:

Jacksonville, Florida
zip code 32224
United States

User ender_x then points out afterward:

10,000... Thats quite a bit.. you could sell those on www.bitcoinmarket.com/ for $41 USD right now..

so it is a slightly bad deal even then!

Three days later Lazlo's asks again on the thread:

So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I'm offering too low?

and one day later he confirms that the sale was made without naming the buyer:

I just want to report that I successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza
Pictures: heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/
Thanks jercos!

where "jercos" is presumably the Bitcoin Forum username of the buyer. en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Jercos gives his identity as Jeremy Sturdivant.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/15049566/other-bitcoin-pizza-jeremy-sturdivant-fortune-hanyecz/ mentions Jeremy sold too early however:

The cryptocash disappeared when Sturdivant used it to "cover expenses" while travelling the US with his girlfriend.

Figure 1.
Laszlo's Papa's Specialty pizzas
. Source. The most famous of Laszlo's pizzas, originally published on his website: web.archive.org/web/20210217220810/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/lightning-pizza/.

Figure 2.
Laszlo's secondary pizza event
. Source. web.archive.org/web/20210217220810/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/lightning-pizza/ documents another pizza event, as we have different pizza boxes from the most widely known one: web.archive.org/web/20211219130004/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/ Only image thumbs are archived however. web.archive.org/web/20211016070745/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15049566/other-bitcoin-pizza-jeremy-sturdivant-fortune-hanyecz/ however shows a large version that The Sun got their hands on before the takedown.

heliacal.net is presumably his personal website? But is was down as of 2023. But we have Wayback Machine archives of course :-) Latest working one of that page 2021: web.archive.org/web/20211219130004/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/ And some other stalking:

web.archive.org/web/20090812075412/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki
Welcome to heliacal.net. This is the personal site of Laszlo Hanyecz. It's a place to hold various things I have an interest in or am working on.
web.archive.org/web/20091031044500/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki/Main/Cats he's a mega cat owner
At web.archive.org/web/20091031044606/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki/Main/Jackie we get to stalk his wife a bit:
On March 10, 2007 I became the husband of the most wonderful woman in the world. We live in a nice house in Jacksonville, FL next to the University of North Florida.
Figure 4.
Laszlo Hanyecz's wedding picture
. Source. They are actually both physically rather similar, quite short and plumpy. Too much pizza maybe? Just kidding, they look like a great match!
web.archive.org/web/20030805153714/http://heliacal.net/~solar/ that home has some files, partly early piracy

Laszlo is truly, literally, the nerd who got very very very lucky!!!

TODO Who bought Laszlo Hanyecz pizza?!!!

On June 12, 2010 Laszlo re-offers:

This is an open offer by the way.. I will trade 10,000 BTC for 2 of these pizzas any time as long as I have the funds (I usually have plenty). If anyone is interested please let me know. The exchange is favorable for anyone who does it because the 2 pizzas are only about 25 dollars total, maybe 30 if you give the guy a nice tip. If you get me the upgraded extra large ones or something, I can throw in some more bitcoins, just let me know and we'll work something out.
My 1 year old daughter really enjoys pizza too! She just smears it all over her face if you give her a whole slice, but she does eventually manage to get most of it in her mouth (minus a few loose toppings of course).

and on August 4 user MoonShadow takes him up:

An open offer, you say? It's been a while since you had some pizza. Feeling a craving, Laszlo?

but finally Laszlo withdrawls the offer:

Well I didn't expect this to be so popular but I can't really afford to keep doing it since I can't generate thousands of coins a day anymore. Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I'm kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.

so we understand that the sales happened multiple times!!! Also, we understand that he was probably a miner.

TODO list all of the potential sales.

Bibliography:

en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Laszlo_Hanyecz

Jeremy Sturdivant (jercos)

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en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Jercos mentions:

According to jercos the transaction was finalized over IRC chats. Jercos was 18 at the time of the transaction.www.bitcoinwhoswho.com/jercosinterview is the source. Persumably the contact was initiated via the private messaging feature of the Bitcoin Forum.

Bibliography:
en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Jercos

Who bought Laszlo Hanyecz pizza?

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TODO who bought the Bitcoins? Is anyone else besides Jeremy Sturdivant

The original forum thread bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1195 suggests multiple purchases were made, until he had to withdrawl the offer. Perhaps an easier question is how many pizzas he got in the first place.

www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/13on6px/comment/jl55025/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 mentions without source:

I know. Laszlo Hanyecz estimates that he spent 100,000 BTC on pizza in 2010. Laszlo is the man that invented GPU mining and he mined well over 100,000 BTC.

One source is: bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-man-behind-bitcoin-pizza-day-is-more-than-a-meme-hes-a-mining-pioneer

Related thread from May 2023: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5453728.msg62286606#msg62286606 "Did Laszlo Hanyecz exchange 40000 BTC for 8 pizzas, not 10000 BTC for 2 pizzas?" but their Googling is so bad no one had found the 100,000 quote before Ciro.

As per bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/113831/searching-the-blockchain-based-on-transaction-amount-and-or-date at blockchair.com/bitcoin/outputs?s=time(asc)&q=value(1000000000000),time(2010-05-18..2010-08-05) we can list all the transactions made between the offer and withdrawal dates for value exactly 10k. There are only about 20 of them, and including someone the 22nd of May, so it is extremely likely that this will contain the hits. No repeated recipients however, so it is hard to progress with more advanced analytics tools

Some of the transactions are:

49d2adb6e476fa46d8357babf78b1b501fd39e177ac7833124b3f67b17c40c2a (22 May 2010 06:17:59 GMT+1). This one has some Google mentions:
- github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook/blob/6c472dd00b649b18b6ca6bbcc8ba23775619ce08/appdx-pycoin.asciidoc
- github.com/richardkiss/pycoin/blob/367a58e25aacf85549a7335f7607ba8a53727c81/COMMAND-LINE-TOOLS.md
This is a highly unusual transaction from a single address 17WFx2GQZUmh6Up2NDNCEDk3deYomdNCfk to a single address 1CZDM6oTttND6WPdt3D6bydo7DYKzd9Qik for the exact value with no change.
By digging a bit, we see that the input comes from exactly 20 outputs, e.g. 1E43t1VCc3Q3STKauEiUoVqLbT81XT67xj, each of which is a block reward of 50 BTC, the reward value at those early times, thus satisfactorily explaining how the exact 10k value was obtained without change. Because we know that Laszlo was a big GPU miner, it is extremelly likely that this transaction was made by him.
a1075db55d416d3ca199f55b6084e2115b9345e16c5cf302fc80e9d5fbf5d48d (22 May 2010 07:16:31 GMT+1) also has several Google mentions, e.g.:
- tokenview.medium.com/bitcoin-pizza-day-the-story-of-buying-pizza-with-10-000-btc-54cd0896f9f1
www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/a1075db55d416d3ca199f55b6084e2115b9345e16c5cf302fc80e9d5fbf5d48d even specially marks it "Bitcoin Pizza" and "Notable". Furthermore, the receiving address 17SkEw2md5avVNyYgj6RiXuQKNwkXaxFyQ is even marked as verified an as belonging to Jeremy Sturdivant.
Furthermore this also shows us how Jeremy then transferred about half of Bitcoins 10 minutes later, but we can't know if it was to his own accounts or to cash out.
The nature of this transaction is very different from the previous one. It uses a bunch of inputs to a single address 1XPTgDRhN8RFnzniWCddobD9iKZatrvH4. 1XPTgDRhN8RFnzniWCddobD9iKZatrvH4 contains a mixture of regular small inputs, but also a bunch of block rewards e.g. www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1MUoh2nJudSDdKu9NkcevaCG1Qe3nZHWFZ, thus also clearly indicating Lsazlo ownership.

8 d1a429c05868f9be6cf312498b77f4e81c2d4db3268b007b6b80716fb56a35ad (29 May) is a common looking transaction with a single input from 1Bc7T7ygkKKvcburmEg14hJKBrLD7BXCkX and two outputs, one likely being the change to 1GH4dRUAagj67XVjr4TV6J9RFNmGYsLe7c and the other the actual value to 138eoqfNcEdeU9EG9CKfAxnYYz62uHRNrA.

The input chain is complex, but it does contain one block reward on the third level: 17PBFeDzks3LzBTyt6bAMATNhowrvx5kBw + 79 rewards 4th level at 045795627ca29ec72a94c23a65ee775ea1949d60b6fba0938b75e1cfe1e6643e.

d3498960e5f73031f726cb878382cc696938810fa43f918696cbf242afc9765e (04 June): complex chain, unclear
2ea2914c131b2798041a80c00c44081a3559233d69d8b367e4244e6b12096610 (10 June): single input/single output. Complex input, but has some 2nd order mines e.g. e6393f613ef12f5708fa511875b8ff5080f6c8864709f8d92bd99435826a9d0d
ea595789878b673776d0577cbc6063db611bb4e2954e226459d556995f547922 (24 June): single input/single output. Complex input, but has some 2nd order mines e.g. b9a0c2d24a744b79fe001a67468c456746b74e94a6ce68a2e5f80bf645d678b9
461f91a98bbe2f269d8af938039e185287761677f0418fcc8238c5f3dca72935 (02 Jul 2010 08:39:17 GMT+1): single 20k input to two 10k outputs. Did he get 2x two pizzas at once? Complex input.
a47f927ca1adeeb4394200e8a37a9297b07e784a251569074a9fc2c04855560f (02 Jul 2010 09:07:35 GMT+1): too close in time to the previous one, unless he was having a massive pizza party with invitees!
77036fa2ac75212be1ce93e8e1008d5cb2bcbb51aa560a5fe29c9c1423bbd00e (02 Jul 2010 09:14:33 GMT+1): the party grows even larger

Lost Bitcoin case

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James Howells (8000 BTC, Newport City, Wales)

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www.linkedin.com/in/howelzy/
Might know a thing or two about landfills.
Epic.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lost-bitcoin-crypto-james-howells-b2406517.html
The bizarre saga started in 2013 when Mr Howells, put the hardware from an old laptop that contained 8,000 bitcoins, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, in a black bag in his hallway.
"I was doing a clear-out in my office and put a lot of items into a bag which I then placed at the front door of my house," he said. "I woke up the next morning and my ex-partner had already taken the bags to the landfill site; she thought she was doing me a favour, it wasn’t her fault."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67297013

Stefan Thomas (7002 BTC, IronKey 2 with password attempts left)

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www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html

As for his lost password and inaccessible Bitcoin, Mr. Thomas has put the IronKey in a secure facility - he won’t say where - in case cryptographers come up with new ways of cracking complex passwords. Keeping it far away helps him try not to think about it, he said.