This is the story of the world's most expensive pizza. Ten years ago, a Floridian man named Laszlo Hanyecz, decided that he wanted a free lunch. The young programmer was an early contributor to Bitcoin’s software when it was barely one year old. An active member of an even more niche community then, Hanyecz actually advanced Bitcoin mining in a significant way. He coded a program that made it possible for miners to mine Bitcoin using their computer’s graphics cards (GPUs), a more powerful method than using a computer processor (CPU), the original means of mining Bitcoin. This was the first shell to drop in what would become an ever-increasing arms race for hash power on the Bitcoin network (what started with more powerful mining rigs with GPU mining would culminate in the massive, ASIC miner packed warehouse that dominate the mining industry today). But most people don’t remember Hanyecz for his contribution to Bitcoin mining. They remember him for what his mining activity allowed him to do: purchase pizza with bitcoin. The Million Dollar Pizza “I'll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas ... maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day,” Hanyecz solicited Bitcointalk, a Bitcoin-focused forum founded by the coin’s creator that was a watering-hole for discussion in the protean days of Bitcoin’s development. “If you're interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.” One other Bitcointalk user, jercos, was interested and agreed: Hanyecz would pay him 10,000 bitcoin and he would order two large supreme pizzas for the Floridian. As Hanyecz told me a year ago over the phone, the price on some trading forum made little difference to him. After all, this was the dude who invented GPU mining; he was eating a meal he paid for with internet currency he generated by idling his home desktop. In his mind, this wasn’t paying for anything; this was a free lunch. “I wanted to do the pizza thing because to me it was free pizza,” Hanyecz explained. “I mean, I coded this thing and mined bitcoin and I felt like I was winning the internet that day. I got pizza for contributing to an open-source project. Usually hobbies are a time sink and money sink, and in this case, my hobby bought me dinner.” “I was like, ‘Man, I got these GPUs linked together, now I’m going to mine twice as fast. I’m just going to be eating free food; I’ll never have to buy food again.’” While the first transaction was completed on May 22, Hanyecz would go on to do it 9 or so more times and spend a total of 100,000 bitcoin on pizza that summer. He has to stop in August, though, because the network was getting more popular so he couldn’t “generate thousands of coins a day anymore,” according to a post in the original pizza thread.