10,000 BTC for 2 Pizzas Wasn't The Entire Story...

Don't blow off new technologies too quickly, or you might regret it.

You ever do something you didn't know was smart. But it turned out to be really smart later on?

Me, either.

The oldest thing I own is a 100-sided die. My friend and I bought it 30 years ago at a hobby shop. It cost us $5. Today, it's worth nothing. But its sentiment is beyond measure. Yet, "beyond measure sentiment" doesn't pay the rent. Still, if you hold on to the right thing long enough, you can pay the rent with it. But how are you supposed to know what the right thing is? The truth is, you never can know for sure. Sometimes, it's about getting lucky--like this next person.

The oldest Bitcoin wallet with the largest amount in it is right here.

It’s value today is 5,112,856,558.4 USD.

I had thought it could be a lost Bitcoin wallet until I saw its activity three days ago. Someone has been feeling nice for several years now. And I don't know who the owner is, but I know they have no regrets about being the ultimate HODLer. So it could be Satoshi Nakamoto. But who knows for sure?

This next person, however, probably feels really different.

His name is Laszlo Hanyecz. And he was the first person to figure out a GPU could mine Bitcoin about 800 times faster than a CPU. And so, that's what he did. He mined and mined, and he had "a lot of them" after a while.

Bitcoin was only a year old. So, there wasn't even an energy cost tied to the coin yet. Although rudimentary markets valued his 10,000 coins at $41, he still didn't know what to do with them all. And so, Hanyecz, on May 18th, 2010, posted on the Bitcoin forums, then with only 230 members, that he would pay 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas, probably large.

And in three days, he got an answer. It was a little much to pay for two large Papa John's pizzas. But what else was he going to do with all these coins? So, a fellow forum member bought the pizzas, delivered them to Hanyecz, and he, peer-to-peer, transferred the coins.

Forty-one dollars is a lot for two large pizzas, even today. But 634,224,577.49 USD? I love pizza, but not that much. Of course, he had no idea what would happen with Bitcoin years later. And he says, "he has no regrets." Oh, by the way, notice the article I linked has Bitcoin at half what it is now? Crazy, right?

But he didn't just buy pizzas with Bitcoin once. No. Hanyecz continued buying pizzas with Bitcoin. Four or five more times. In total, he said he spent 40,000 BTC.

I'm not even going to put the dollar amount because I don't want to take the fun away from you nor be responsible for any hospital bills. But I do feel like I need to sit down.

I have to believe Hanyecz went through some kind of "dark night of the soul" to get through his decision. I mean, it's done and over. And that's all he can really do. But, man. What a hell of a thing to have to reconcile. It makes you wish you were a hoarder.

I know what you're thinking: why can't I get lucky?

Well, I'm not much of a dating coach. But we're here to talk about making money. So, can you focus, please?

Okay, let's roll with this.

Can you get lucky?

Nowadays, there are over 13,000 coins listed across various markets. Most of them die quickly. But some don't. And even fewer stick around for years, then among those, a few make millionaires.

Now, if you read my articles, you know I play the long game with a bit of risk tossed in. Perhaps you can't buy $100 worth of each crypto that exists (unless you can, of course. Then, by all means, knock yourself out) because it would cost over $1.3 million.

But yeah, you can get lucky.

However, it usually takes more time than a pump and dump. Look at Kadena. Maybe some of you saw it coming, but I didn't. And a lot of other people didn't either. I watched VoskCoin (highly recommend) the other day, and he showed me how you could mine Kadena and earn $480 a day!

ASIC Miner Value is an excellent site that gives you an estimate of what ASIC miners earn in a day after electricity use. See that top listing? At the time of this article, it was at $408.27. It hurts my heart that I don't have a mining farm.

But I've got to reconcile it.

As you can imagine, those ASICs are sold out. While the website I linked lists two manufacturers, they are new, and they want $25,000 for one miner. Be careful because they are probably scammers. Those miners would sell for sub $10,000 before the semiconductor and supply line problems. Afterward, they could sell for about $15,000-16,000. And yeah, it's price gouging. But I'd pay for it.

However, $25,000 from a new company? No.

Please be careful out there, okay?

Anyway, Kadena popped off, and not many knew. I thought to myself. There must be a way to increase the odds you and I could be in the vicinity of a great deal like that. I mentioned in my last article a possible portfolio strategy for the older investors among us. But honestly, it can work for any age. It's got an option to invest in a risky coin. Sure, It's gambling, hands down. And you could lose. But you'll lose because you knew there were risks. And not because someone scammed you.

So, let's look at what to know to mitigate scam risk.

What to look for in a risky bet to avoid a scam

I feel like I'm running over the same old ground here. But, in a way, I can't stress enough how informed you must be to take on this kind of risk. So, here we go again.

And really, you should do this for any cryptocurrency but especially high-risk ones.

The purpose

You got to look deep into the project's goals and see what they're trying to achieve. For example, does their token only pay for the usage of their particular service? For example, a ticket sales token where you convert fiat to a token, then the vendor must convert the token to fiat?

No thanks.

Or, does the project have a goal like Helium (HNT), whereby you are rewarded tokens by buying and deploying a wifi hotspot for IoT devices.

Sign me up.

Indeed, you can get a Helium miner, plug it into a regular wall socket and start mining today. It's easy. But, you need to be near other nodes to earn more tokens. I'll leave you the map here. So, you can check it out.

The point is, be sure the project has long-term merit, or you're looking at a probable red flag (DOGE is a fluke, so it doesn't count).

The whitepaper

Yes, they're sometimes dull. But whitepapers contain all the critical information telling you whether they're promising or whether you should run. It needs sections like tokenomics, token allocation, vesting schedules, plans, roadmaps, etc. It should have as much detail as possible. The more, the better.

If a project skips on the whitepaper or it's hard to read and understand, run away. Don't think that because you don't understand it that you're not smart. The project leaders are the ones who aren't smart. Why? Because an excellent project leader should be able to explain their plan to a five-year-old.

"Never invest in anything you don't understand." -- Warren Buffett.

The website

Cats have websites. So, a development team's project better have one. If you have to go to GitHub to look at what's happening with a cryptocurrency's progress, run away. They must have a website. And it must be well done and organized. It's too easy to set up a website that looks halfway decent.

So there are no excuses.

Here's an example of a website you don't want to see. Now, I get it. The project was going for a theme with the Windows XP look and all. But when you're making a sales pitch, clear and solid beats cute and novel in the minds of an investor. By the way, if you're invested in Superminesweeper, I mean no offense, and I hope you take off.

The development team

I'll admit, I'm weak in this area. So, I'd have to do a lot of additional research on individual team members, which isn't bad. I mean, I can look up their LinkedIn and see if their experience gels with what I believe a developer of their particular project should have. But I don't know prominent names in the crypto space. Some people do. And if that's you, excellent. I hope to be where you are soon.

The team doesn't need to be lawyers and dishwashers. They should have relevant experience, you know, like programming or something. Or, business leadership would also be a good one. I believe you get the idea.

I mean, it was a no-brainer for people to initially invest in Cardano when a former Ethereum guy headed it up. But when you're out here in the crypto badlands, you don't know what you might get.

So, do the diligence.

The investors

Some projects will have private investors, and you might recognize some of their names. Perhaps they've invested in other successful projects. These people know their stuff. And while anyone can make mistakes, they're less prone to than most.

Also, you want to be sure the development team has an investment as well. But beware if the team's token holdings are larger than the tokens available to the public. Sure, Ripple has most of XRP but, once again, an exception to the rule. Plus, it's centralized.

One more thing. Be sure the team must keep their tokens locked up for 24-36 months. I've looked around, and that seems to be the standard. You don't want them doing a rug pull.

The partnerships

Now, these projects will claim any partnership on their page for clout. And they're not wrong for doing so, as long as the partnerships are actual ones. So, if a project uses Gmail and they call that collaboration with Google, run away.

There should be some details and dates regarding the partnership. If they have a deal with someone prominent, check their website and see if they've announced it. If you can't find anything anywhere else but on the project's website, run away.

I know. There's a lot of potential running. Sorry.

Conclusion

You never know what decisions you make that will bear fruit.

Laszlo Hanyecz didn't, but it's understandable. He couldn't see the future--none of us can (unless you actually can, then call me).

You'd love to be there when some great pump or moonshot happens. But the truth is, even if something like that does happen, it takes time. After all, it took Bitcoin eleven years. Then, it took Shiba Inu one year.

It takes time and luck. However, you can increase your chances of not spending $600 million on two pizzas by knowing what to look for in a possible future project that could pump.

I've got to credit Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey, authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency, for the inspiration and the pizza information to write this article.

I checked it out from my local library, but you can also get it here pretty cheap. Or, of course, there's always Amazon. I'm not an affiliate. So, I don't make any money from that link to Thriftbooks.

You guys, be careful out there in crypto-space.