Get Ready for the Biggest Pizza Party in the World!

On Saturday, May 22, 2021, PizzaDAO will be giving away over $200,000 worth of free pizza in over 100 communities around the world. Why May 22nd? In 2010 Laszlo Hanyecz made the first bitcoin transaction and paid 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 slices of pizza, now legendary, it’s been deemed Bitcoin Pizza Day ever since. Fast forward, this story inspired a conversation in a Clubhouse room ironically called The Room About Nothing, and sparked a simple idea to make and sell NFT art that can pay for actual pizza. On February 18, 2021, Rare Pizzas was born. The goals became about supporting small businesses affected by the pandemic and providing free pizza to the masses to address hunger. As more people got on-boarded the project exploded.

The group started off with reservations for a Rare Pizza Box (1 of 100 designs) with a “fully cooked” digital Rare Pizza NFT and raised approximately $1.25 million. The pizzas, once released, will be randomly generated and programmed to give the appearance of having been “cooked”. For instance, attention was given to the curl of basel in the oven over time. The group also created 30 flavors of Pizza Pop and a wide range of pizza sticks with special sauces, which continue to sell.

Over 300 artists from around the world have collaborated on the project to create hundreds of unique pizza toppings. A team of more than 100 developers, managers and marketing people have contributed to creating the website, programing the NFTS, and creating content on social media. It’s been a busy couple of months and interest continues to grow. There are more than 2,200 people on their discord.

For the big day PizzaDAO partnered with Slice to distribute over $55,000 worth of pizza to customers across the country. Another partnership is with World Pizza Champions, supporting 80 different pizza shops. Mostly, the group reached out to local places through their global artists network. In one instance an artist in India took the time to scout street pizza vendors and taste tested them to ensure the best ones were considered. The group spent the last month calling to order $500 worth of pizza with a $125 tip for staff. Many of the calls took place live on Clubhouse. Half the time they were met with disbelief, until they honed their pitch and then the list grew rapidly.

The biggest challenge was actually trying to give the money away. PizzaDAO had to form an LLC in Wyoming, get a bank account, a paypal account and an American Express card in order to pay some of the vendors, since most of them aren’t accepting crypto currency yet. Fortunately, the financial gymnastics was figured out and the party is on! Check out their website and discord and consider jumping in to buy some NFTs at their store. You can also find a Rare Pizza Box NFT, soon to be populated with Rare Pizza, on the secondary market on OpenSea.