Over the past 24 hours, the valuation of the cryptocurrency market has dropped from US$390 to US$373 billion, by more than US$17 billion.
Bitcoin's (BTC) price dipped below US$8,300 and the value of
Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, dropped to US$680.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has continued to stumble, down another 4% in overnight trading, and dropping US$400 of its value over the past 30 days. Similar downward trends are also being exhibited by the other major crypto coins.
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Yet even the most passing observation of
Bitcoin Pizza Day isn't complete without a calculation of just how precisely much, in dollar terms, those two pizzas cost.
At press time, that's about US$83.7 million for the two pies, or just shy of US$42 million apiece.
But why does this matter? To understand, one needs to turn back the clock to 2010.
In mid-May of that year, a programmer named
Laszlo Hanyecz sought to exchange some of his hard-earned bitcoins for pizza. Several days later, he was able to do so with the aid of a fellow user of the
Bitcoin Talk online forum – still today a central hub for discussion around cryptocurrency.
A deal was struck – 10,000 BTC for two Papa John's pizzas. At the time, that soon-to-be eye-watering amount was worth a mere US$25, or a fraction of a penny apiece.
Yet, back in 2010, it wasn't so much the number of bitcoins spent or the product involved. It was a milestone event simply because the transaction took place. Though limited to 16 slices of pizza, the era of bitcoin-powered commerce had begun; not to mention the silent wincing over spending millions of dollars in today’s currency for a couple of hot-out-of-the-box cheese wheels.
"It wasn't like bitcoins had any value back then, so the idea of trading them for a pizza was incredibly cool," Hanyecz said in a 2013 interview with
The New York Times, adding, "No one knew it was going to get so big."
The tradition still lives on today, with the purchase being used to track other landmark bitcoin events.
Even French hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger got into the act,
releasing a limited edition device in honor of the occasion.