Bitcoin

On 22 May 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz ordered two pizzas and paid 10,000 bitcoins for them. Back then that was about 41 dollars. It was one of the first real purchases made with bitcoin – and the day is still celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

Laszlo says he has no regrets. We might have a few. But how did "a few dollars for a pizza" turn into more than 120,000 dollars for a single bitcoin in 2025?

Only 21 million#

Bitcoin's rules say there will never be more than 21 million bitcoins. New coins are only created as the miners' reward for new blocks (you know that from the lesson on mining), and that reward keeps getting smaller.

You do not have to buy a whole bitcoin, though. It splits into a hundred million pieces – the smallest is called a satoshi (0.00000001 BTC), after Bitcoin's creator. You can buy bitcoin for a few euros.

The halving: half the reward#

Roughly every four years (exactly every 210,000 blocks) the block reward is cut in half. This is called the halving.

So new bitcoins arrive more and more slowly. The last one will be created around the year 2140 – after that, miners will live on fees alone.

Digital gold#

There is a limited amount of gold in the world and nobody can "print" more. Bitcoin works in a similar way, which is why it is nicknamed digital gold: people buy it to store value, not to pay for their groceries.

There is a big difference, though: gold has thousands of years of history, Bitcoin seventeen. And its price moves far more wildly.

Look at the highlighted period: from a high of 69,000 dollars in November 2021, the price fell to 15,476 dollars by November 2022 – down 78%. Whoever bought at the top watched for a year as every hundred turned into about twenty-two.

Common myths#

• "I have to buy a whole bitcoin." You do not – you can buy any fraction.
• "Bitcoin is anonymous." More like public: every payment stays visible on the blockchain forever.
• "The price always rises after a halving." See the box above – and the 78% drop in the chart.