Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day! Before composing a Margherita to commemorate the first Bitcoin transaction in the real world, here is a slice of trivia:
What do a family vacation in Japan, a 50 Cent album, a steak dinner, and a framed cat photo have in common?
They were all paid in Bitcoin (BTC) by members of the Cointelegraph Bitcoin community! And just like the Bitcoin pizzas that used to cost 10,000 BTC, which are now worth over $300 million, community Bitcoin purchases have also exploded.
Benjamin de Waal, vice president of engineering at Bitcoin exchange Swan Bitcoin told Cointelegraph: “I spent 7 BTC on a family trip to Japan a few years ago. In today’s value, 7 BTC is worth well over $200,000, but Ben is happy because his children are happy:
“It would have been worth a lot more now; but I don’t regret it at all. A good childhood full of adventure, fun and learning is priceless.
Felix Crisan, the scammer vigilante, told Cointelegraph how he once spent 50 BTC (worth $1.5 million) to develop a new software module for his company in 2015. Crisan added that in 2016:
“Let’s not forget the ‘spent’ bets of almost 1 BTC on who will be the next US President.” […] Of course, I didn’t win.
This is a $30,000 bet at the current market price of BTC.
Jeffrey Albus, editor of Cointelegraph, said he ate a steak to demonstrate Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer capabilities “in 2011 or early 2012.”
“We paid 15 BTC – 12 for the meal, plus 3 BTC left as a tip (which the waitress probably threw away.)”
Worse still, the value of 15 BTC more than ten years ago was so low that it was less than the total bill: Albus had to supplement it with good old greenbacks. The value of Bitcoiner-appropriate steak dinner is now worth less than half a million dollars.
In a word to the wise, Julien Liniger, CEO of Swiss Bitcoin exchange Relai – and a bitcoin maximalist through and through, told Cointelegraph that he “bought a bitcoin hoodie for 0.1 BTC at the time, but it was the last thing” – a hoodie for about $3,000. He explained that “then it became too stupid a thing for me to spend instead of pile up”.
Meanwhile, the team at CoinCorner, the British bitcoin exchange behind the Lightning Network contactless payment card, shared some stories. CEO Danny Scott bought 50 Cent’s album “Animal Ambition” with Bitcoin when the market price was around $600. 50 Cent “forgot” he accepted 700 BTC for the album – hope Scott forgets the missed earnings too!
Molly Spiers, Head of Marketing at CoinCorner, told Cointelegraph: “I bought a photo postcard of my cats […] for 0.009 BTC. The $270 postcard was unfortunately not enough for Spiers to keep; “I lost them somewhere over the years – I would have framed them with pride!”
Fortunately, there are “no regrets”, because it “makes a good story”. Additionally, she shared a photo of the cats:
While “experimenting with Bitcoin as a currency,” CoinCorner software developer Matthew Ward told Cointelegraph that he “bought the Cities Skylines game when it launched on Steam in March 2015 for 0.108 BTC.” You can be the judge of whether the graphics deserve a $3,000 prize:
Finally, Didi Taihuttu, known as the father of the Bitcoin family and sometimes the Bitcoin tattoo artist, spent 2.75 BTC on a Bitcoin miner in 2014. $, I gave up BTC mining and started mining dogecoin (DOGE). If he had held the BTC, he would have over $180,000.
Related: Try to Top This: PizzaDAO Celebrates Bitcoin Pizza Day with 100 Parties Worldwide
Taihuttu also shared that during his adventures as The Bitcoin Family, he parted with over 9 BTC ($270,000), which he describes as “losing 9 BTC but gaining an incredible adventure.”
And for those wondering what happened to the 10,000 BTC Hanyecz spent on the pizzas, according to Cointelegraph research, 5% of the total ended up in a very wealthy wallet, while “some of the funds apparently been liquidated” on a failed crypto exchange.
The wealthy wallet that swallowed some of Hanyecz’s BTC is among the 15 richest Bitcoin wallets, accumulating over 53,000 BTC. The total spent or sent from the wallet is 0 BTC: a certified Bitcoin hodler.