Answer: Two pizzas. Paid with 10,000 bitcoins which is now worth $450 million.

Questions:

• What do you know about bitcoin?
  • If you have learned about it, what have been your sources of information
• Do you think it is a good investment? Why or why not?
  
• Do you see lots of merchants/stores currently taking bitcoin? 

Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.

Behind the numbers (Coindesk): 

Hanyecz is known as the first person to use bitcoin in a commercial transaction. On May 22, 2010, when bitcoin was a little over a year old, he bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC. The day is now known as “Bitcoin Pizza Day.” With one bitcoin now worth $9,500, this is apparently a joke and Hanyecz’s $45 million pizzas are the punchline.

The joke is also a parable, illustrating the competition and interplay between three potential uses of bitcoin. The first is speculation. Bitcoin’s nosebleed-inducing decade of upward price movement is what drives CNBC headlines and motivates participation: People see it as a way to get rich. “Bitcoin is a way to harness greed,” said Hanyecz in a recent interview from his home in Jacksonville, Fla. It’s greed that underpins the delicate balance of incentives that keeps bitcoin running.

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Want to learn more about Bitcoin? Check out NGPF's Virtual PD this Thursday (2/11): Basics of Bitcoin

NGPF has resources on Bitcoin including:

• FinCap Friday: Bitcoin Bonanza
• FinCap Friday: The $80 million pizza

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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