May 19, 2026 – Two days ahead of the global 16th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, ZOOMEX officially launched its Pizza Week campaign, honoring the first real-world transaction involving Bitcoin: the purchase of two pizzas for 10,000 BTC by Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz on May 22, 2010.
At the time, those 10,000 BTC were worth roughly $41. At Bitcoin's all-time high in May 2025, they would have been worth over $1.1 billion. But ZOOMEX is not telling that story this week.
Marketing Director: 'Laszlo Was Running a Test, Not a Trade'
“The industry has spent sixteen years fixating on what that pizza would be worth today, and in doing so, it walked straight past the more interesting question,” said Fernando Lillo, Marketing Director at ZOOMEX. “Laszlo wasn’t making a trade. He was running a test. And the result of that test wasn’t a loss — it was proof that the entire idea could work. A technology that cannot interact with daily life remains a technology, not a currency. That distinction is what Pizza Week is about.”
That remark breaks with the dominant “HODL” narrative that has characterized crypto culture for years. The industry’s standard advice had been to hoard Bitcoin like digital gold and never repeat Laszlo’s “mistake” of spending it.
Data Shows Shift: Crypto Payments Surging
According to industry figures cited in the announcement, monthly transaction volumes for crypto payment cards jumped from roughly $100 million in early 2023 to over $1.5 billion by late 2025, posting a 211% year-over-year increase as of March 2026. A quarter of U.S. adults now use crypto for everyday transactions, payments, and financial management.
ZOOMEX Product Trio: From Trading to Spending
To capture this shift toward utility, ZOOMEX is spotlighting three products during Pizza Week:
- Arena 0-Cost Trading Competition: Live with a $600,000 prize pool. Each participant receives $100–$200 in platform-funded trial capital — zero entry cost, same starting line, results determined by trading volume and ROI.
- ZoomexStocks: U.S. stock-linked assets (Apple, Tesla, Nvidia) accessible directly from a crypto account, no fiat conversion or separate brokerage account required.
- ZoomCard: A multi-currency virtual Mastercard in partnership with licensed financial institution UR, supporting USD, EUR, CHF, SGD, HKD, JPY, with zero issuance and annual fees, compatible with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay.
The three offerings cover trading contests, asset investment, and everyday spending — pushing crypto beyond the chart and into the checkout line.
From a Pizza Order to a Global Asset Class
Sixteen years after that pizza order, Bitcoin has become a force even governments cannot ignore. MicroStrategy holds 818,869 BTC (nearly 4% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist), acquired at a total cost of over $68 billion. The U.S. government maintains a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Sovereign wealth funds have disclosed exposure. Global crypto market capitalization stands between $2.5 trillion and $2.7 trillion, with Bitcoin representing roughly 60%.
ZOOMEX’s Pizza Week campaign runs across its global social media channels with a dedicated space panel, a community reward pool offering thousands of dollars in USDT incentives, and localized content including a ZoomCard promotional video. The company, founded in 2021, serves over 3 million users across 35+ countries, holds regulatory licenses including Canada MSB, U.S. MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC, and has passed a Hacken security audit.