Thirteen years have passed since bitcoin was used to pay for pizzas for the first time. A fact that may seem insignificant but that, according to Silvina Moschini , the co-founder of TransparentBusiness and the first Latin American to run a unicorn, changed the financial world “forever.”
The date, known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, marks a notable milestone in the more or less bumpy journey of cryptocurrencies. It commemorates a historic event in the sector, when on May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz , a Florida-based programmer who mined bitcoin as a hobby, decided to transfer 10,000 units to a forum participant to buy him two pizzas.
At the time of purchase, bitcoin was considered a low-value experiment and was known only to technology enthusiasts. At that time 1,309 bitcoins were Phone Number Data equivalent to one dollar; In the following two years, the digital asset began to be recognized as a means of payment and its value increased to $350 per unit in 2013.
Touched, but resists
Currently, bitcoin is not going through its best moment, despite the fact that it maintains a value of just over $26,000, which represents less than half of its historical maximum of $69,000. This decrease is mainly due to the crisis that affected the cryptocurrency market in 2022 due to various frauds and scandals.
In exchange, the businesswoman explained, the 10,000 bitcoins that Hanyecz paid for pizzas in 2010 would be equivalent to 100 million dollars in 2019, or 1,000 million dollars in 2020. Despite the drop, currently it would still be at 260 million dollars .
For Moschini, the lesson that can be drawn from “Bitcoin Pizza Day” is that investing early in cryptocurrencies can generate extraordinary benefits in the long term, but that currently it is necessary to seek a certain security. Argentina has also highlighted the role of cryptocurrencies, which are gaining ground at a time when inflation is devaluing fiat currencies and are presented as an option compared to gold, whose inventory is limited.
The Bitcoin Conclave
“Bitcoin Pizza Day” is celebrated shortly after the Bitcoin 2023 conference, a three-day conclave that brought together some 13,000 people in Miami Beach, including industry leaders, investors and politicians, to discuss the developments of this digital token. the most widespread.
"I believe that bitcoin is an incredible tool for political change, and that it will not only change the United States but every country ," with positive effects for ordinary people, David Bailey , executive director of BTC Inc. , organizer of the event, told EFE . conference.
Despite the ups and downs of cryptocurrencies, especially after the fall of the FTX platform in 2022 , Bailey is optimistic to the point of ensuring that "bitcoin is the earthquake that changes the paradigm of the trajectory of humanity in the future" and which will reach a price of “billions of dollars” in the coming decades .
A change of trend
Moschini warns that the industry "is not going to be just bitcoin ," which in addition to being decentralized and independent of government regulatory entities, is faithful to its own principles. "There will be different risk profiles and different areas ," he added.
"We believe that the trend is massively towards regulated cryptocurrency models, which have a containment framework so that there are no scams," said Moschini, whose Unicoin , he said, has "the best of the traditional financial world . "
In its first year, Unicoin has sold more than $475 million to individual and corporate investors in more than 100 countries. The figure corresponds to the pre-sale of the cryptoactive, since it has not yet been tokenized, something that is expected towards the end of this year.
"Imagine what an illusion, being Latin American and that we can create a product like this ," said the Argentine. Hanyecz's same enthusiasm for being part of the history of cryptocurrencies, as the young programmer has pointed out in past interviews.