How We Lost $7,000 With Bitcoin

Sometimes, you try not to think about it. Sometimes, you don’t even know the chance you blew. Sometimes, though, you do know and you get reminded, and then you’re all, “What’s the point of knowing how to ask questions about the future if you don’t bother?”

What inspires these dark thoughts on a bright blue morning?

Eleven years ago, a man named Laszlo Hanyecz blew 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas. This story isn't about Mr. Hanyecz though.

It's about my feels. And, boy, do I have some.

Pizza Guy Versus Gong Show Guy

It’s widely reported the infamous pizza guy, Laszlo Hanyecz, has no regrets. In May 2020, ten years after the infamous transaction, Yahoo Finance reporter Galen Moore spoke to Hanyecz.

Either Moore or the editor actually titled the piece, “10 Years After Laszlo Hanyecz Bought Pizza With 10K Bitcoin, He Has No Regrets.”

At the time of the Yahoo interview, Hanyecz was working as a developer for a garment brand and living in Jacksonville, Florida. I don’t know what he’d be if he held onto his pizza money, but it’s safe to say it wouldn’t be that.

You know what? I’m going to call BS on the whole “no regrets” thing. I’ve always been a secret fan of the wit and wisdom of The Gong Show creator Chuck Barris:

“How can you not have any regrets? It’s impossible. No regrets? Bull... I don’t believe anybody who tells me that.”

At Least It Wasn’t $45 Million Thrown Away

Our Bitcoin story is pretty small beer next to Pizza Guy’s. Dear husband is always the first to say, “It doesn’t change our lifestyle any.”

Still, sometimes, it irks. Still, sometimes, I think if only I spent ten seconds looking into what we held in our hands…

Years ago, some random who didn’t like using Paypal wanted to tip hubby for some online fiction he’d posted. “Would you mind taking some Bitcoin?”

“Yeah, all right, I’ll figure it out.”

Hubby knows beans about finance, but he somehow managed to open an account. Checked on it after a while. There was something there, all right, but we didn’t know how to cash out.

That was a feature, not a bug. We should have left it sitting there.

Let a few years drift by until all the shouting in the news reminded us to check on it again.

Well. Easy to say that now, Bunky.

In the event, hubby was hosting the fics on a website that accepted Bitcoin. So he transferred some fraction to pay for $50 worth of hosting.

Details fade in the fog of time. We don’t recall the exact amount, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.20.

“It would only be worth around $7,000,” he said a few months ago. A statement intended to reassure me we hadn’t screwed up bigtime.

The morning I wrote this story, I looked up the spot price. After all the recent upsy-downy swings, we were back to that. One-fifth of $35,000 is $7,000.

Only $7,000.

Only.

Big deal. Forget about it. Channel Laszlo Hanyecz himself.

Tell myself I have no regrets. Even though I’m supposed to be the one who knows money in this house.

Tell myself, oh well, I couldn’t have known.

But, from time to time, I can’t help but think, “[Expletive redacted], that was the most anybody ever paid for web hosting in the entire history of the world.”

They tell you to know yourself as an investor. Know how much you can lose without kicking yourself.

There's a real big problem with that advice. You always kick yourself when you lose.

Unless you're Laszlo Hanyecz.

And probably even if you are.

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