The Bitcoin Pizza initiative, a new endeavor promoted by Bitcoin influencer Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, that seeks to fund Bitcoin development while remembering Lazlo Hanyecz’s legendary pizza purchase, was launched yesterday. While being applauded by some, it also raised a lot of criticism from the cryptocurrency community due to its proposition.
Bitcoin Pizza Initiative Launched
Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, the known cryptocurrency influencer, launched a new endeavor called Bitcoin Pizza. The business objective is to remember the now mythical purchase that Lazlo Hanyecz made 11 years ago, while helping the bitcoin developer community at the same time. The initiative includes bitcoin users, local businesses in 10 different U.S. cities, and custom packaging to create a new brand for this purpose.
Today I am announcing Bitcoin Pizza – a new national pizza brand that is launching in 10 cities.
The first pizzas will be delivered this Saturday, which is the 11 year anniversary of the infamous bitcoin pizza transaction.
Buy pizza: https://t.co/L6AkyRPgjr 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/nUkCZd430Q
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) May 18, 2021
The pizzas will be available starting next Saturday, and users who would like to purchase these pizzas will have to order through a local vendor, that will have custom branding boxes available, preparing the pizza in six different presentations already defined on the site. These flavors are heavily influenced by Bitcoin-based memes: “Laser Eyes,” “Satoshi’s Favorite,” “No Keys No Cheese,” “Lightning Meat,” and “Capital Greens.”
Bitcoin Pizza aims to deliver 10,000 pizzas this Saturday, the 11th anniversary of Hanyecz’s purchase. Pomp commented on social media that the full proceeds of this sale will go to fund Bitcoin Development via the Bitcoin Development Fund invoked by the Human Rights Foundation. The fund has collected $316,303 from 112 donors so far, supporting several devs and wallet teams linked to the cryptocurrency since its establishment.
Inbound Criticism
While this idea was received with enthusiasm by a part of the cryptocurrency sphere, who was eager to support this initiative, another part of it criticized the idea for a simple reason: Local vendors will only accept credit cards for its pizzas, leaving bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies out of the picture for paying.
For them, the whole idea of commemorating Pizza Day is to experience the same that Hanyecz experienced back in the day when he paid for his pizza with Bitcoin. However, Pomp fired back. The influencer tweeted an answer stating:
We don’t want people giving up their bitcoin for pizza, but rather we are working to raise money in the form of depreciating fiat dollars to help fund bitcoin development.
Pompliano implied he is in fact protecting investors by accepting dollars instead of bitcoin.
What do you think about the Bitcoin Pizza initiative? Tell us in the comments section below.
