This Papa John's pizza might look like an ordinary delivery, but it seems likely to go down in history as the most expensive food of all time. And the date it was purchased, May 22nd 2010 could well mark the first shot fired in a major revolution in the history of economics.
This is because this pizza was bought for bitcoins, and it is likely the first ever transaction ever made with the fledgling currency, which came to life in 2009.
Further when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz ordered the pizza in Jacksonville, Florida, three years ago, he purchased it with 10,000 bitcoins. At today's exchange rate of approximately 120 dollars to one bitcoin that amounts to a current day price for the pizza of 1 million 2 hundred thousand dollars.
For historians, Laszlo's initial exchange can still be seen today on the bitcoin forum. He wrote:
"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."
It seems impossible to imagine these days, as prices for bitcoins have multiplied in value over 50 thousand times. This was recently highlighted by the bitcoin purchase of a Porsche in Austin Texas. The price here, just 300 bitcoins.
Clearly, this leads us to a greater question. How far will the bitcoins value soar. An answer that no one knows. Yet some pundits suggest that bitcoins could swarm into the $60 trillion dollar international space for transactional currency.
Indeed if bitcoin even grabs a 1% share of this market, its value can be calculated to climb to a phenomenal 100 thousand dollars per coin. At that point, the pizza would be worth exactly 1 billion dollars. Too much? Its not clear. Laszlo ate well that night, and launched the once abstract coin into the world for the first time as a currency.
