“I’ll pay 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. Two large ones, so I’ll have something left for tomorrow,” Laszlo Hanyecz, one of the contributors to the digital payment system source codes, said before completing the bizarre trade in 2010. At the time of that offer, Bitcoins were quoted at $41.
It was the first documented purchase of a good with cryptocurrency. And if Laszlo would not have spent that 10,000 Bitcoins on pizza, in seven years they would have converted into $45.3 million.
How to buy Bitcoins?
Over the past years, the value of Bitcoins has exploded and constantly continues to grow. But is it a simple way to get rich really quick? I decided to follow Hanyecz’ example and invested two pizzas ($30) in Bitcoins. That isn’t very complicated.
First you have to create a digital ‘wallet’ and fill it with the cryptocurrency. I choose Copay, that has an easy app and can also be used on my laptop. It is easy to create a wallet just by typing e-mail address.
After that I had to copy a set of words. It is very important because if phone crashes, these will serve you as an only option to access the wallet. Otherwise, all your Bitcoins will be lost.
Now it’s time to buy a small piece of a Bitcoins. So, to invest $30, you have to go to”Bitcoin exchange” and make an anonymous purchase – it works if the total amount does not exceed $60.
I submit the amount and my address (it’s important not to make any typos, otherwise you will lose money) and within a few minutes, 0.008142 Bitcoins are on my account. Remember that transactions cost around $1.4.
And the price goes up!
Now I have to wait for the prices to rise. However, I may not have entered at the best moment. The rate at this point is around the $4.1k and has never been higher than today. But the Bitcoin is breaking one record after another, so why won’t that continue during the next couple of days?
But several days after the rate declines, and I start to be worried. Fortunately, it’s just $30 and if it does not make me rich, the damage is still limited.
Soon Bitcoin’s price is rising again. In a week, there’s suddenly almost $36 in my account. A yield of about 20 percent. In just one week!
I am proudly telling everyone about my talents in investing. But it has nothing to do with that, as Leon Brandsema, a financial expert, explains.
“After this good profit, it only seems like you have control over it, as if you entered the market at the right time because of the good insight,” Brandsema says. “However the Bitcoin rate is based on nothing. I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t be worth 1 dollar, or 1 million dollars.”
Brandsema compares it with a house: “For example, house is really worth something. It’s made of building materials, you can live in it. There’s nothing behind Bitcoin that represents that value.”
He adds: “The only reason why Bitcoin is worth so much, is because there’s a lot of demand for it. You have a yield of 20 per cent in a week. That doesn’t happen on the normal stock market. But because of that the rate may collapse suddenly tomorrow.”
Pizza, then…
So, I’m not such a smart, successful investor. Maybe it’s best to take our my profits as soon as possible. But how to get rid of my Bitcoins? For example, I can resell them to an intermediary office called Bitonic. But better I’ll follow Lazlo Hanyecz’ example. I’ll buy pizza from it.
At Thuisbezorgd.nl you can pay for it with Bitcoins. But almost no one accepts the cryptocurrency, as spokesperson says.
Nevertheless, paying is a piece of cake. I choose my pizza and select that I want to pay with Bitcoin. After that, I get a QR code on my screen. I scan it with my wallet app and confirm the order. Pizzas are on their way.
Now I can only hope that they will not turn out to be worth more than $45 million in seven years.
