Laszlo Hanyecz’s net worth is estimated to be between $500,000 and $1 million currently. It is not clear if he has any cryptocurrency investments but he still owns some Bitcoin which he uses wherever he can, usually online.
Laszlo is an American software developer and podcaster known for his early use and adoption of Bitcoin Cryptocurrency. A deeper dive into his Bitcoin journey revealed an interesting discovery—that he would have had a net worth of almost $800 million if he held on to most of his Bitcoin until, at least, 2020. Before Bitcoin became valuable, Laszlo Hanyecz was one of the few people who had a sizable stash of cryptocurrency coins. He soon became famous for his use of Bitcoin to perform financial transactions. Read on to discover more about Laszlo Hanyecsz and how much he is worth.
Bitcoin Was The Largest Source of Laszlo Hanyecz’s Net Worth
The software programmer first started mining Bitcoin in 2010. He was one of the earliest contributors to the Bitcoin software and has been a part of the pioneer team since the company was barely a year old.
According to Laszlo, he helped code a program that utilized graphics cards of computers for mining cryptocurrency. It had been an open-source project, available to anyone who wanted to work on it. While all this was going on, Laszlo decided to take up mining Bitcoin as a hobby.
A decade later, when asked about whether he ever foresaw the profitable future of Bitcoin, Laszlo Hanyecz admitted that he had always known the coin was going to blow up, but that back then, he had very little knowledge of how cryptocurrencies actually worked.
It’s easy to perform transactions with Bitcoin now, but thinking about it, the case was very different 10 years ago. Back then, people were reluctant and very skeptical of an online mode of payment such as cryptocurrency.
Moving on, Laszlo had only been experimenting with his new Bitcoin software for a couple of months. He eventually figured out how to mine it because he was the one who had written the code for the first GPU miner.
Around that period, he was able to accumulate a lot of Bitcoin. Sadly, he didn’t have enough foresight to invest his cryptocurrency earnings, which brings us to why Lazslo is a very big part of Bitcoin history.
2010 Was the Genesis of Laszlo Hanyecz’s History-Making Bitcoin Transaction
After he had gathered what he felt was a sufficient amount of bitcoin, Laszlo Hanyecz made a move to actually try to spend his new online coin. He decided to send a message to the Bitcoin chat forum that he was part of, offering to pay ten thousand (10,000) bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. Laszlo further customized his pizza order, and asked for “onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc.”
He sent this message on May 22, 2010, and he got his deal with someone offering to buy him pizzas. Later that day, Laszlo Hanyecz got two pizzas from a pizzeria called Papa John’s. According to Laszlo Hanyecz, he didn’t feel bad about the transaction he was making because as far as he was concerned, it was free pizza.
Laszlo recalled that he felt extremely overjoyed when the transaction went through, and he felt like he had won the internet that day. For him, it was like making money from a hobby instead of the usual way—spending money on one.
The Sofware Engineer Was Inducted into the Bitcoin Hall of Fame For Performing The First Bitcoin Real-World Transaction
Cryptocurrencies have undoubtedly swept over the world of online buying and we have Laszlo Hanyecz to thank for it. He has mentioned severally that he believed his pizza purchase played a key role in how fast Bitcoin exploded.
According to his interview with Cointelegraph, Laszlo Hanyecz said that he was of the opinion that he played his own destined part in the rise of Bitcoin. He also admitted that if he hadn’t taken the lead, someone else would have done so.
After his initial transaction, Laszlo Hanyecz would go on to use Bitcoin to purchase many more pizzas that summer. When the total amount was finally calculated, it was said that he spent over 100,000 Bitcoin on pizza in 2010.
It’s interesting to note that 100,000 Bitcoin was worth over £4.5 billion in 2020. With the current volatility of cryptocurrency around the world, the value of 100,000 Bitcoins has dropped further to about £306 million in 2023. This is a far cry from its initial value of $30 in 2010.
May 22nd is now memorable as the day the first Bitcoin transaction took place. This day is known as Bitcoin Pizza Day around the world. It was revolutionary since it introduced a brand-new payment method, courtesy of Laszlo Hanyecz.
Laszlo Hanyecz’s Net Worth is Presently About $1 Million
As you already know, the programmer began to mine and trade on Bitcoin while he was still very young. What many don’t know is that Laszlo Hanyecz has also worked together with various commercial networks sharing his trading expertise on Bitcoin.
Other notable businessmen, including the former world’s richest man Elon Musk, have also been involved in actively promoting this new form of money as a new form of currency.
Although Laszlo Hanyecz is not famous for his profession, the software developer became widely recognized for using a cryptocurrency coin to pay for a physical good – pizza in this case.
The programmer might not be a very wealthy man presently but his name will go down in history as the pioneer of Bitcoin, which is also a valid achievement. Laszlo Hanyecz frequently appears in lectures, discussions, and podcasts about Bitcoin.
Laszlo Hanyecz’s Net Worth Would Have Been Over $220 Million Today If He Had Kept His Bitcoins
If Laszlo Hanyecz had been able to predict the future of Bitcoin and saved his coins, calculations report that he would have been worth around $220 million on March 1st, 2021. Regardless, the programmer has maintained that he has no regrets about spending those bitcoins. Despite people and interviewers repeatedly asking him if he regrets spending that money, the system developer says he doesn’t have any sleepless nights about it.
While many of us would understandably have beaten ourselves up for our rather ridiculous mistake, Laszlo Hanyecz remains content with his life as a programmer and has lived happily ever since he swapped 10,000 Bitcoins for $41 worth of pizza. The Bitcoin pioneer confirmed that he still makes use of Bitcoin, not for physical payments though, but mostly for online purchases.
