Today, May 22, is a special day for cryptocurrencies.
It’s Bitcoin Pizza Day… and the cryptocurrency is making new record highs…
Fifteen years ago, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made the first documented purchase of goods using Bitcoin, paying 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas.
Today, that same order is worth over $1.1 billion – almost the same as the entire market cap of Papa John’s!!
It’s bitcoin pizza day: the 10,000 bitcoin spent on 2 Papa John’s pizzas in 2010 by Laszlo Hanyecz is now worth $1.1 billion, just shy of Papa John’s market cap of $1.3 billion
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 22, 2025
“What was once considered a highly speculative risk has evolved into a serious asset class,” said Ulli Spankowski, chief digital officer at Boerse Stuttgart Group.
As CoinDesk reports, Hanyecz has long shrugged off the missed fortune” tag, telling CBS in 2019 that the transaction made bitcoin “real” to him.
He mined the coins back when BTC was under a penny, and few could have predicted the multi-trillion-dollar asset it would become.
And as the world celebrates, bitcoin rallied up near $112,000 overnight – a new record high…
Source: Bloomberg
With flows into BTC ETFs resurgent in recent weeks…
Source: Bloomberg
And that move has pushed the largest cryptocurrency’s market cap above that of Amazon…
Source: companiesmarketcap.com,
Market data shows that Bitcoin had a market cap of $2.205 trillion at the time of writing, $70 billion more than the $2.135 trillion Amazon valuation.
“By surpassing Amazon in terms of capitalization, Bitcoin has attracted even more attention from the non-crypto audience,” said Alex Obchakevich, founder of Obchakevich Research.
Obchakevich said the latest rally “will strengthen confidence in Bitcoin and lead to new injections into the crypto market.”
The surge came as Bitcoin set a new all-time high and traded up near $112,000, which Obchavich said will “attract new investors to large funds.”
Obchakevich noted that institutional players continue to expand their role in the digital asset space:
“In May, BlackRock became the second largest bitcoin holder after Satoshi Nakamoto, surpassing Binance in this indicator.”
Hassan Khan, the CEO of Bitcoin liquidity platform Ordeez, told Cointelegraph that “this is a structural change.”
He explained that “Bitcoin is no longer simply a hedge, it’s in the process of becoming a benchmark currency.”
According to CoinMarketCap data, the total cryptocurrency market cap stood at $3.49 trillion at the time of writing. While high, this is still nearly 6% lower than the all-time high of $3.71 trillion reported at the end of 2024.
Analysts say bitcoin’s latest upward momentum is primarily driven by institutional factors, such as large capital inflows into spot ETFs and continued fundraising by publicly traded firms like Strategy to invest in bitcoin.
“Today’s demand is driven by institutional-grade infrastructure and stronger regulatory clarity,” said Caroline Bowler, CEO at BTC Markets.
“Investor sentiment has shifted decisively, reflecting institutional-style allocations.”
But, global liquidity is rising…
…and for now, it’s gold and bitcoin that is the ‘outlet’… and as Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kenrick pointed out recently, global sovereigns are ‘quietly’ buying bitcoin (as he projects the cryptocurrency reaches $500k by the end of Trump’s term in office)
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/22/2025 – 08:30
