Today, May 22nd, we celebrate (or maybe just recognize) Bitcoin Pizza Day. The story is very well-known in the cryptosphere, but here's the skinny in case you haven't heard it before: On this day in the year 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz traded 10,000 BTC (worth about $41 at the time) for two large pizzas. Back then, the network was still young and bitcoin's real-world utility was unproven. With no marketplaces accepting BTC as payment, the bitcoin talk forums became the landscape where the deal was proposed:

It was a peer-to-peer transaction in every sense of the Bitcoin White Paper. Another user took him up on the offer, the pizzas were delivered to Laszlo, and the coins were then sent over the network:

And there it is...the legendary transaction on block 57,043. You can see today's values on the transaction, which make most peoples' reaction $700 million pizzas?!?!

While that is certainly a defining aspect of the story, the real story is bitcoin becoming hard money as it was a means of exchange. The other thing that sticks out to me in particular is that the bitcoin pizza story demonstrates the coin's anti-inflationary nature. The purchasing power of BTC astronomically increased since 2010.

Back then, 10k BTC bought 2 pizzas

In 2026, 10k BTC can buys millions of pizzas.

Bitcoin Pizza Day not only represents the first real-world transaction done in satoshis but it highlights the deflationary nature of the virtual currency. While fiat currencies continue to devalue with essentially an unlimited supply, bitcoin remains deflationary and its purchasing power rises over time. 

So, for me anyway, today is a reminder that bitcoin is the ultimate hard money and fiat currency just can't hold a candle to it. Decentralization is very much alive, no matter how much legacy financial institutions want to play with "paper bitcoin;" what was a rogue internet project in 2010 is becoming the new world reserve currency.

The original Bitcoin faucet is long gone, but there are still ways to collect some free crypto if you invest some of your free time:

• Sign up here on Publish0x, if you haven't already, to earn free crypto for reading & writing content

• Join Cointiply and roll the faucet every hour, view PTC ads, take surveys to earn free Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, or Dash

• Downoad the Bitcoin Cash Giveaway to collect some free BCH sats, paid out weekly

• Check out Yescoiner to easily collect some satoshis; no nonsense -- just solve a captcha. Low payout, slow drip here

• For rewards in XNO, DOGE and BTC, check out TipNano app

• Final Autoclaim is DutchyCorp's longstanding faucet, online and active since 2019

• If you're DCA'ing your Bitcoin stack, try River for zero-fee recurring BTC buys & earn 3.5% Bitcoin interest on deposited USD

• Slice is a Google Chrome browser extension that allows you to earn BTC for browsing, paid via Lightning Network

If you're interested in Bitcoin Lottery Mining and want to get a desktop Bitcoin miner:

• Head to Solo Satoshi and check out their open-source BitAxe models. They're a great starting point for beginning miners!