Man who spent 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas in 2010 could've been eye-wateringly well off today
If you've ever regretting spending money then you've got nothing on this one man, who in 2010 spent 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas and would have been extremely wealthy today if he'd held on to the money.
Bitcoin regret is a thing more than ever nowadays, as the cryptocurrency has reached staggering highs of over $100,000 following Donald Trump's US election victory in early November.
There have been horror stories about people losing hard drives containing Bitcoin that would now be worth close over $500 million, but also successful individuals who have held on their investments to become the first Bitcoin billionaires.
Few are quite as heartbreaking as the tale of Laszlo Hanyecz though, who used what was an insignificant amount of the crypto coin at the time to pay for just two pizzas, but that fortune would make him unbelievably rich if sold right now.
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We've all seen those experiments where children can either have a cookie now or wait a while to get two, but what would you do if the solo cookie was a lovely cheese pizza, and the reward for waiting 14 years was $1,016,317,300?
Unfortunately Hanyecz chose the first option, and while we're sure the pizza tasted great at the time, he's probably regretting his decision massively right now.
It was on May 18, 2010 that he took to Bitcoin Forum to offer 10,000 Bitcoin in exchange 'a couple of pizzas' when the value of the combined coins was around $25 at the time.
The staggering thing is that it still took a couple of days for anyone to fulfil his offer, as Hanyecz eventually got his Papa John's pair. While this offer remained open for a while, he eventually closed it on August 4 of the same year as he couldn't afford to keep generating Bitcoin - if only he had a bit of foresight.
As mentioned, the Bitcoin he used to trade for the two pizzas would be worth an unbeliveable $1,016,317,300 today at the current price of $101,631.73 101,631.73 per coin.
What's far worse though is that it wasn't just one pair of pizzas that Hanyecz traded for, as he has admitted that he parted with 100,000 Bitcoin before eventually shutting up shop. Hopefully the pizzas tasted as good as $10 billion would feel right now.
Thankfully Hanyecz isn't too rueful about his decision-making 14 years ago, as he told the New York Times that "no one knew [Bitcoin] was going to get so big."
He sold the rest of his stock when the price was around $1 per coin, but he sees himself as the winner in that scenario: "That was enough to get me a new computer and a couple of new video cards, so I'd say I ended up on top."
We're not sure that's really the same thing as a billion dollar fortune though.