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twenty nineteen. just bought bitcoin and wanted to see how it worked. first purchase, a 1oz gold coin. was nervous. figured if bitcoin was temporary at least i'd get some real money back. it worked.

i sat there at the table. coffee steaming. laptop whirring. this shit works i thought to myself. regret paid a visit.

twenty twenty was getting paid in bitcoin. my sister had egglaying chickens. bought a dozen off her. regret was nowhere to be seen. years gone by. sister kept the coin all this time. she's happy. kept the coin circular. i did this a few times with friends and family. trading coin for goods. no regrets.

twenty twenty three. in japan. needed to pay a bill. friend in the states wanted coin. made the trade. frictionless.

i think the only time really regretted spending bitcoin was in the early wake. when i was ignorant and didn't know what it was. even though i read the white paper, watched a few videos, heard some podcasts, it wasnt until i hit the send that it all made sense. earn coin. spend coin.

what was your first purchase using bitcoin?

Here's a blog post I made in February 2015. It wasn't on Bitcoin pizza day, but it was a pizza paid for with bitcoin, back when brawker and purse.io were a thing. It wasn't my first purchase, but I think it's fun and interesting and mildly on-topic. I'll use quotes like this to add today's context to the story.

I bought a pizza using bitcoinI bought a pizza using bitcoin

I stumbled on brawker.com last night. It lets you buy anything online using bitcoin. It works a lot like purse.io, the website that lets you buy on amazon using bitcoin, which I’ve done a video about.

Brawker creates a marketplace for two groups of people. People who want to spend bitcoin online, and people who want to buy bitcoin using a credit card or paypal. Bitcoin spenders submit orders, and purchasers make a bid on the order. The spender accepts any bid, then the spender buys the order with their credit card or paypal. The product is shipped to or redeemed by the spender, who then releases the bitcoin from escrow.

Today being Valentine’s day, I felt like treating myself to a pie. (Thanks to JakeHasAnApple for the idea! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riw96gVDUBI

Video is now private. Jake passed away several years ago due to a heart condition. Rest in Peace Jake!

I went to http://www.pizzarita.net and created an online order. One large 5 pounder pizza, and breadsticks. Since I live outside of the delivery zone, I set the order for carryout. I entered in a tip (they always do a great job) and got the total for the order. Lucky for me, pizza rita uses a food ordering system called ChowNow, which is social media friendly and gave me a link to share! The link was meant to post on facebook, then your friends can review the order. It worked perfect because following the link would bring up the food items, scheduled time, carryout status, and specific store.

(it breaks after the scheduled time, but the link looks like this)

https://facebook.chownow.com/search/index?restaurant_id=930&delivery=false&when=17,0,02/14/2015#

I used facebook back then. ew

I signed up on Brawker, and created an order. I pasted the above link into Brawker, along with a description of everything I wanted ordered. It was about 6AM when I did this, and I wanted the pizza at 5PM, so there was plenty of time for buyers to bid on the order.

That they did. A few hours later, two buyers bid on the Brawker order. I chose the buyer that wanted a little more of a fee, but had great reviews and was reportedly, “fast”, and “frictionless”.

Once accepting the bid, the buyer was quick to send me a message, “Ready when you are!”

That was my queue to add funds to escrow. Easy enough, just scanned the QR code on the website using the bitcoin android app.

A network confirmation later, I received another message.

“Have checkout/order ready to go on my end”

Soon after, the buyer sent me a pdf of the ChowNow order confirmation. My pizza was scheduled!

That evening, I went and got the pizza. I was excited to see how the pickup would go. Everything was all paid for, I just had to establish that the pizza belonged to me, even though I wasn’t the direct purchaser. The conversation went something like this.

Counter attendant: “Hi how can I help you?”

Me: “I’m here to pick up an order for Chris”

attendant: (asking cooks) “Do we have an order for Chris?”

(a cook points to two boxes on top of the oven)

attendant: (inspects receipt) “This does not say Chris”

Me: “My buddy ordered it”

attendant: “What’s you’re buddy’s name?”

Me: (thinking back to the brawker order) “Jay.”

attendant: (looks at receipt) “Jason?”

Me “Yeah.”

attendant: “Ok that works! Enjoy, have a great night!”

I walked out smiling. I paid an internet stranger bitcoin to buy me a pizza using his credit card. All with minimal trust, but by the power of escrow, knowing I’d be satisfied. This is a strange transaction but it works so well. Pizza Rita gets dollars, Brawker gets bitcoin, Jay gets bitcoin, I get pizza. Welcome to the future of barter!

I miss Brawker! I was looking through old e-mail invoices to see how much Bitcoin the pizza cost. The invoice doesn't list the amount, but doing some quick math let's say it cost $25 for the pizza and breadsticks. On that date, 1 Bitcoin was $14,042.00 so I think that would have been 0.001780 BTC for the food.
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I bought a can of soda pop at bitcoin park. It was spring of 2022.

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Sheesh I can’t remember it’s been so long ago

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exactly

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Web hosting. Pretty boring, but cool because I was able to get it with zero kyc.

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what was your first purchase using bitcoin?

oh, probably coffee at some Bitcoin conf.

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Unfortunately my first purchase with Bitcoin was altcoins that already has passed away from our reality

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