On 22 May 2010, a Florida programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz ate what would become the most expensive meal in human history. He paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa John's pizzas.
At the time, nobody thought this was extravagant. Bitcoin was a year-old experiment worth a fraction of a cent, and those 10,000 coins were worth about $41 — a fair price for two large pizzas with, as Laszlo specified on the BitcoinTalk forum, "onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni... no weird fish topping." A 19-year-old forum user took him up on it, ordered the pizzas, and collected the coins. It was the first time anyone had bought a real-world good with Bitcoin — proof the strange new currency could actually buy something.
Then Bitcoin happened. As the price climbed from cents to tens of thousands of dollars, Laszlo's lunch became the internet's favourite cautionary tale. Every year on 22 May the crypto world marks "Bitcoin Pizza Day" by working out what those two pizzas would be worth now.
Today — 3 August 2026, with Bitcoin around $62,700 — those 10,000 coins are worth roughly $627 million. That's about $313 million per pizza.
For comparison, the value of Laszlo's two pizzas over time:
- May 2010: ~$41 — a normal pizza order
- Today (Aug 2026): ~$627 million
- May 2025, Bitcoin's peak: ~$1.1 billion
- Per pizza, today: ~$313 million
Here's the part nearly everyone gets wrong: you'll see it said everywhere that the pizzas are worth "over a billion dollars." That was true at Bitcoin's all-time high in 2025. Bitcoin has since fallen by roughly half, so the real figure today is a comparatively modest $627 million — still, comfortably, the priciest meal ever eaten.
Laszlo has no regrets. Bitcoin was play money then, and he reckons proving you could actually spend it mattered more than hoarding it. "I don't think it's a big deal," he has said — a remarkably relaxed take on having eaten the most costly lunch of all time.
The most expensive meal in history wasn't gold leaf or truffles or a tasting menu. It was two Papa John's pizzas.