Bitcoin : Lesser Known Interesting Facts
2 Pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin : May 22, 2010 Laszlo Hanyecz traded 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John’s pizzas. Fast forward to September 2022 and 10,000 bitcoin would buy you 13,333,333 pizza pies at $ 15 a pizza. In Laszlo’s defense at the time bitcoin was valued at a fraction of a cent. It wasn’t until October 2010 that BTC price was at $ 0.10. For this reason May 22 is designated as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Bitcoin has been forked over 100 times : Bitcoin hard forks would include Bitcoin Cash , Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision , Bitcoin Gold and others with Bitcoin Cash being the most successful and having a market cap ranking of #29. Soft forks bring small changes and do not separate from the parent chain.
Satoshi Nakamoto was a HODLER : It is estimated that Satoshi mined more than 1 million bitcoin and is still being held in what is assumed to be Satoshi’s bitcoin wallets. There were a few dormant Satoshi era addresses that came to life in April 2022 after 12 years of no activity which only adds to the speculation and the mystery. To this day it still is a unknown regarding the real identity of Satoshi.
21 Million bitcoin limit : The 21 million bitcoin limit is set to expire in 2140. While mining 90% of bitcoin took only 12 years , the remaining 10% is expected to take 120 years. Block rewards which were 50 BTC in 2009 have already been reduced to 6.25 BTC per block in 2020 and will reduced again to 3.125 BTC at the next halving which is expected to take place May 2024. The 64th and last halving will occurs in 2140.
Lost bitcoin : It is estimated that approximately 4 million bitcoin have been lost forever. Lost keys , damaged or disposed of hardware , and people dying without sharing access to their bitcoin wallets make up lost bitcoin. The bitcoin blockchain is immutable and irreversible once a transaction is completed. It’s little consolation for those who have lost bitcoin to know that it increases the value of the remaining bitcoin !
First bitcoin mortgage : Was taken out in 2019 : Brock Pierce used nearly $ 3 million in bitcoin as collateral to purchase a home through Nexo a company that offers instant crypto credit.
The largest corporate holder of bitcoin : Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has the distinction of largest corporate holder weighing in at approximately 655,000 bitcoin. MicroStrategy comes in a distant 2nd at roughly 130,000 bitcoin.