In May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, an early cryptocurrency enthusiast, used Bitcoin to buy two pizzas from Papa John’s. He spent 10,000 Bitcoins, or roughly $40 at the time, in one of the first purchases ever made with the digital currency.

It has turned out to be the most expensive dinner in history.

On Wednesday, the price of a single Bitcoin rose to more than $100,000, a remarkable milestone for an experimental financial asset that had once been mocked as a sideshow and a fad. The total cost of those pizzas today: $1 billion.

Bitcoin now stands as arguably the most successful investment product of the last 20 years. The motley assortment of hackers and political radicals who embraced Bitcoin when it was created by an anonymous coder in 2008 have become millionaires many times over. And the invention has spawned an entire industry anchored by publicly traded companies like Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and promoted by celebrities, athletes and Elon Musk.

Even the president-elect says he is a believer. During the campaign, Donald J. Trump marketed himself as a Bitcoin enthusiast, vowing to create a federal stockpile that could push its price even higher.

Bitcoin began as “essentially an experimental hobbyist project,” said Finn Brunton, the author of a 2019 book about the history of cryptocurrency. “To see where it is now is to see a really impressive feat.”

Bitcoin’s rise to $100,000 signals its now-undeniable status in the global economic system. The virtual currency has become a staple of financial markets, embraced by Wall Street giants and amateur investors alike. Its surge also caps an astonishing turnaround after its price dropped below $17,000 in 2022, as the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange sent the industry into a tailspin.