U.Today - Bitcoin enthusiast on the X platform @pete_rizzo_ has published a thread in which he revealed the story of Laszlo Hanyecz – the guy who made the legendary pizza purchase on what is now known as Bitcoin Pizza day – and his collaboration with the legendary mysterious figure of Satoshi Nakamoto, while the latter was busy creating BTC.
Hanyecz was not just a random IT developer who decided to use Bitcoin to buy a pizza. He was a member of Satoshi’s OG developer team and left his trace in Bitcoin mining.
Hanyecz discussing ideas on Bitcoin with Satoshi
Fourteen years ago, Mac developer Laszlo Hanyecz was based in Jacksonville, Florida. When he bumped into Bitcoin a year after its launch in 2010, BTC only ran on Windows, so Hanyecz decided to transition it onto MacOS. He did so by translating the Bitcoin code and adapting it to run on Macs. He wrote the new version of the code on his iBook G4.
Hanyecz then became one of the most trusted contributors of Satoshi Nakamoto. The above-mentioned thread contained a screenshot from the BitcoinTalk forum, where Nakamoto and Laszlo were discussing what makes Bitcoin valuable and the mechanics of how its transactions work. They also exchanged ideas and plans for the future design of Bitcoin and its scalability.
The “Bitcoin pizza buyer” did not always agree to what Satoshi suggested on the forum, rejecting his ideas; one of the screenshots in the thread shows “Laszlo pushing back against those who already didn’t think the network could scale.”
Hanyecz starting mining with GPU
Laszlo was one of the first five developers who helped Satoshi to improve Bitcoin. He was also among the first developers to start mining Bitcoin. He was the very first person to ever mine BTC with GPUs. He had a powerful gaming computer, and with it he gave a massive boost to Bitcoin's hashpower. His computer allowed the man to earn 35,000 BTC during the first two months after mining kicked off. Then, he quickly earned 80,000 Bitcoins thanks to mining.
On May 18, 2010, he posted an announcement that he would gladly buy two large pizzas and pay for them in Bitcoin, writing his name in the history of Bitcoin pop culture.