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Bitcoin Pizza Day Is Now a $1.1B Celebration

An order for two pizzas was paid with 10,000 BTC fifteen years ago. Today, that same order is worth over $1.1 billion — just as BTC just hit fresh record highs.

Updated May 22, 2025, 3:37 p.m. Published May 22, 2025, 7:16 a.m.
The actual pizzas (Credit: Laszlo Hanyecz)

What to know:

  • Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $111,800 on the 15th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day.
  • In 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz made the first recorded commercial transaction with bitcoin, buying two pizzas for 10,000 BTC.
  • The 10,000 BTC used for the pizza purchase is now worth over $1.1 billion, highlighting the cryptocurrency's dramatic rise in value.

Bitcoin Pizza Day is here and it just got its most fitting tribute yet: a new all-time high.

Bitcoin surged past $111,800 early Thursday, setting a fresh record. 15 years ago on this day developer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas, then worth roughly $40.

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The May 22, 2010, purchase marked the first recorded commercial transaction using BTC, a turning point that took the asset from cypherpunk code to actual currency.

That same 10,000 BTC can buy over 70 million pizzas at current prices. It is worth over $1.1 billion as of Thursday.

Hanyecz has long shrugged off the missed fortune” tag, telling CBS in 2019 that the transaction made bitcoin “real” to him. He mined the coins back when BTC was under a penny, and few could have predicted the multi-trillion-dollar asset it would become.

Still, the transaction remains a cultural milestone for the crypto market — a moment that showed internet money could work as actual currency. Now, it’s not just pizza being paid for with bitcoin. It’s property, cars, and in some countries, even taxes (briefly).

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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.

What to know:

  • KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
  • This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
  • Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
  • Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
  • Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.

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Crypto analyst Chris Millas has highlighted an unusually persistent slump in Strategy shares, breaking with past drawdown patterns even as the firm continued accumulating bitcoin.

What to know:

  • Strategy shares fell in each of the final six months of 2025, marking the first time since the firm adopted bitcoin in August 2020 as a treasury reserve asset.
  • The decline stands out for its persistence, as past selloffs were often followed by sharp rebounds.
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