Bitcoin breaks the $100,000 barrier for the first time

Bitcoin surpassed the $100,000 threshold for the first time. At around 9:39PM ET tonight, the cryptocurrency’s value hit six figures, passing the milestone for the first time in its nearly 16-year history.

That also means that a Bitcoin pizza order is now worth $1 billion. For those not in the loop, a Florida man – because, yes, it was a Florida man – was paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas 14 years ago in what is considered the first cryptocurrency to be traded.

“I will pay 10,000 bitcoins for a few pizzas … like 2 large ones to have one left over the next day,” Laszlo Hanyecz wrote on a crypto forum on May 18, 2010. Four days later, a British man. He took her and lifted her up. That money was only worth $45 at the time. (And a man in the UK only paid Papa John’s $25!) But just nine months later, the price had risen to $10,000.

Hanyecz said The New York Times in 2013 he had no regrets about a $6 million pizza order. “It wasn’t like Bitcoins had any value at the time, so the idea of ​​trading them for pizza was incredibly cool,” he said. “Nobody knew it was going to be this big.”

I wonder if Florida Man has any regrets now that his money for those two Papa John’s pizzas is worth a billion dollars.

Looking at it another way, Papa John’s current market cap is $1.567 billion. So, if Hanyecz had kept his crypto instead of ordering those two pizzas, he would have bought almost two-thirds of the company that baked his pie today.

Then, there is the story of a writer who, in 2017, helped a friend recover (at the time) $200,000 worth of Bitcoin from a broken laptop. Those 40 Bitcoins stuck in the MultiBit wallet for three and a half years are worth more than 4 million dollars today (as long as the cryptocurrency stays above the 100,000 mark).