Bitcoin Pizza Day, celebrated every year on May 22, marked a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency this time as it reached a new record high of $111,970.17 on the day.
Strategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor, who is a well-known Bitcoin evangelist, had quite an advice on the landmark day: pay for pizza with the dollar and keep Bitcoin.
May 22 marks a global celebration in the crypto world. It was on the same day in 2010 that a Florida-based programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC to purchase two large Papa John’s pizzas worth about $41 at the time. That transaction would be worth over an astonishing $1.1 billion today.
BTC, which reached its previous high of $109,241 on Jan. 20 ahead of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, struggled to stay above the $100,000 level from February to early May.
Bitcoin's bull run over the last two years can be attributed to its increasing institutional adoption through steps such as the launch of spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January 2024 during the Biden era, Trump ordering the establishment of a strategic BTC reserve in March 2025, and several companies such as Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) adopting BTC as their primary treasury reserve asset.
Under Saylor's leadership, Strategy began acquiring Bitcoin as early as 2020. In fact, the firm today announced its plan to raise $2.1 billion via the sale of its preferred shares to acquire additional Bitcoin.
As of now, Strategy is the world's largest corporate holder of Bitcoin with 576,230 BTC worth $64.4 billion on its balance sheet. Over the years, it has inspired a wave of other companies, such as Metaplanet , to follow its Bitcoin acquisition playbook, leading to further mainstreaming of the asset.
Michael Saylor has a pizza offer as Bitcoin hits new record high first appeared on TheStreet on May 22, 2025