One of the very first big moments talked about in the history of Bitcoin involves pizza. 

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a computer programmer and one of the early contributors to the Bitcoin community, made a historic transaction by purchasing two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins. This transaction marked one of the earliest use cases of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Bitcoin Pizza Day is now an annual event celebrated to commemorate the first real-world transaction involving Bitcoin. 

Just how “cheap” was Bitcoin at the time? In 2010, Bitcoin had very little value, and Hanyecz's purchase amounted to about $25 worth of Bitcoin. Today, that same 10,000 of Bitcoin is worth around 268 million. The holiday is now celebrated as a way to acknowledge the growth and adoption of Bitcoin since its humble beginnings. It serves as a reminder of the potential value and impact of cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions. 

This year in particular, the web3 community could use something to celebrate given a tumultuous last 12-months. Regulatory uncertainty and lack of clarity, hacks, theft, rampant fraud, and most recently, bankruptcies have led to disenchantment with the technology Hanyecz became a believer in more than a decade ago. 

Using Elementus’ technology, we were able to do additional tracing of Bitcoin Pizza funds and found an interesting insight. Jeff Garzik, a prominent Bitcoin Core developer and founder/CEO of Bloq, appears to have received 50% of pizza sale proceeds later that year after Jeremy Sturdivant (jercos) got 10,000 BTC for pizza from Laszlo.

At Elementus, we want to create a better understanding of the blockchain ecosystem and how it can solve its own problems. There is a serious need for infrastructure that maps blockchains, lots of barriers to adoption, and all of these problems are data problems. Being able to trace Bitcoin Pizza is just for fun, but think of all the ways this technology could help industries such as finance, supply chain and more. 

We’re aiming to help deliver on the theoretical promise of blockchain by providing the infrastructure needed to access data and quickly arrive at previously unimaginable insights—with little to no technical experience. You’ll get on-chain insights that leverage the power of data science, because this is a platform built by data scientists, navigating the blockchain like I’ve been doing for years.

Learn more about what we’re building and request a demo here https://www.elementus.io/products

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