Bitcoin is massively volatile and has been on epic run last years.
The cryptocurrency started the year at roughly US$1000 (AU$1300). As I write this, it is worth a staggering USD$11,534 (AU$15,000) a coin. By the time you read this it will probably be worth more.
When it comes to Bitcoin, there are plenty of tales of woe and success out there. Gizmodo‘s Campbell Simpson recently wrote an article lamenting the fact that he had thrown out AU$7.6 million in Bitcoin (now it’s more like AU$16 million, buddy).
If you think that’s bad, let’s all spare a thought for a developer named Laszlo Hanyecz who is credited with making the first Bitcoin transaction ever.
In May 2010, when Bitcoin was worth a measly US$0.08, Hanyecz posted on the Bitcoin Forum that he’d use 10,000 bitcoins to pay for a couple of pizzas.
Within a few days, Hanyecz was contacted by Jeremy Sturdivant, an 18-year-old who called a pizza store in Florida and arranged to have two pizzas sent to Hanyecz for the princely sum of US$25.
“I just want to report that I successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza,” Hanyecz wrote on May 22, a day now known by the cryptocurrency community as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”.