Bitcoin Forum

Given 2 BTC, i.e. ~400 USD, which path would you chose ? Buy a 21 Bitcoin Computer (https://21.co) or invest in Cloud Mining Website (http://www.cloudmining.website) to secure 2 Ths hash power ?

For me, 21 Bitcoin Computer (https://21.co) is nothing but a Raspberry Pi Miner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha8wt56Rn6U), whereas Cloud Mining Website (http://www.cloudmining.website) is having a long history of payment (http://www.cloudmining.website/payments.php). So, my obvious choice is the second one. What is yours ?

False Dichotomy.
Real answer - Hold off on making judgment on 21 as its use case and purpose is still questionable and avoid all bitcoin cloud mining sites as they are poisonous to the bitcoin ecosystem(they promote mining centralization) and usually are scams and ponzis. 

/End Thread

Neither.

I assume the 21 machine is just a test article not really intended to produce much mining revenue, just prove that it's possible to do it in an integrated manner.

As for cloud mining, I'm sure there are some lovely ones out there but I'll be steering clear anyway.

Neither, because the 21 bitcoin computer is too expensive and most cloud mining sites are a scam in disguise.

we can call all cloud mining is scam after seeing many bitcoin company collapse, if i was you, i will buy 21 coin

Just hold. Cloud mining is a pure ponzi. No one operates them with a real mining machines. 21 computers are damn expensive plus the electricity you would use. If you are planning, do it for a long term.

Hold

I have invested in cloud mining, but just small amounts I could afford to lose. 2BTC is too much to invest it all. Perhaps 0.5 in cloud mining and the other 1.5 BTC hold.

How about 0 BTC in cloud mining...it's not worth putting any money into. You're throwing it away.

I wonder when it'll eventually die off. People still seem to go for it despite no shortage of bad press.

I'd definitely choose the 21 comp over paying for hashrate.
The 21 computer could let you run a full node for your website instead of having to pay for a digitalocean server.
It can also mine a tiny bit of bitcoins. And then when your all done with it you could sell it as a novelty or even collector item.
Way more options with the 21 bitcoin computer than hashrate.

HODL... 

Cloudmining is definitely not the way to go, AMHash had a good history and the operator had a great history of payments but they ran away with millions after that. A good track record to be honest doesn't prove anything. Raspberry Pi can also be used as a full node while being much less expensive. 21Bitcoin Computer is much too inefficient to generate even a small amount of BTC.

If you want to invest 0.5 BTC in Cloud Mining Website, you can actually invest 0.48 BTC, which will give you 400 Ghs, whereas investing 2 BTC will give you 2 Ths hash power. So, is not it evident that investing 2 BTC is a better option ?

I Will use 2 btc to buy something good and not use them on unprofitable mining wars.

Would buy 21 btc computer for sure.
I suck at investments.

What advantage you get from 21 Bitcoin Computer over a Raspberry Pi Miner ?

+1

if I really had to pick between the 2, I'd probably take the 21 just for fun

I prefer to HOLD it than spend for something which don't have a clear/good future.

Especially halving time come in the next year.

If it were cheaper I would get one for fun since I enjoy developing bitcoin websites. It would be fun to see what the firmware offered and what you could make using one. I'm sure it's just your basic bitcoind with RPC and then they built a library on top of it, but still would be neat to mess around with it. But at $400 no way, I'd rather spend that on BTC for the stash ;)

cloudmining.website is a ponzi scheme.

i don't think so

this thread makes no sense. A comparison of apples and oranges.

i voted third option, it's the safest right now, and it is the one that anyone with a sane mind should follow

I totally agree. It really makes no sense .

Bitcoin price is the safest ? It has done worse than Ruble in 2014.

You're forgetting that it started at 0.

Did you check what options the poll presents?

Of course I did. Because, I created the poll :D

If I had to choose between the two I would go for the 21 computer. It seems like an interesting innovation and has a lot of potential in building the Bitcoin economy. I don't know if I would buy the computer, but I would consider it since I get free electricity. Cloud miners always run off with their investors' money.

I want to go for the cloudmining site but they also have a long histry of scamming behaviour so in that sense I will go for the 1st one

I would probably just hold. The 21 bitcoin computer seems to new and not tested yet, most cloud mining operations are scams nowadays. So the safest way would be to just hold.

Yes, hold. And i don't think the 21's "Bitcoin Computer" is necessarily a scam, its just that its application and use is very questionable and sound gimmicky, just like the Antminer R1 aka Antminer Router.

And neither option sound particularly ROIable so i'd get another S4 for that price long before i would buy either of those first two option. I'm not super keen with option 3 either but its probably the best in the choices given.

I never said that the 21 bitcoin computer was a scam, I only said that the 21 bitcoin computer might be to new not tested yet by users. If someone would consider to buy one should wait until  trusted people could review it and post their thoughts on it.

Sure and i should of said "Vaporware-y, unclear, shady, or gimmicky at that time." i didn't mean to call you out. The notion of that 21 Bitcoin computer is just extremely vague and its function isin't even properly addressed, so i'm not even sure its about waiting for trusted user to vet it, its just about knowing what the hell its supposed to do.

Its not worth t at all, they just went on bc hypemand did kind of 'scam'

I think the chance for a ROI on the 21 Bitcoin computer is low, and the ROI on cloud mining is very low and the ROI on hoarding the Bitcoin is average to high.

You could always wait until the price of BTC rise above the price you paid for it, and make a profit, but the other two options is guaranteed to give you a loss. <Most math on this was done>  :P

the 21btc computer is a ripoff and cloudmining.website is a ponzi scheme.

If you insist on mining I would recommend you just buy a raspberry pi ($25) and a USB stick miner ($10) and build your own 21 bitcoin miner ;)

21 is overpriced and will never ROI
cloudmining is a ponzi and you'll most likely lose everything in the process.

both very bad investment choices in my opinion.

I don't think it's supposed to be a device that you would try and mine for profit on.

Nope. At this point in time, the 21 BTC computer is something that should solely be used by developers to create new mechanisms within the Bitcoin niche. The miner isn't there to make you a profit, it's there to generate enough BTC to communicate with the blockchain.

Either way, I'd still buy a Bitcoin computer. Investing in cloud mining is a great way to lose your BTC, and you might be able to resell your 21 for a profit if the initial hype causes a sell out.

I've voted hold :).

So seems the vast majority  :)
Easily the best choice

if you said trading I will choose it (stable price make it not proftable)
so holding is the best (while you must wait a lot before making profit)

I'll just hold into my Bitcoins for a long time. There are various reasons to this. First of all, I think that the 21 Bitcoin Computer is too expensive for it's mining hashrate (which would probably be low GH/s) and second, I don't trust on cloud mining services anymore. I've been scammed to many times and lost huge amounts of profit over the last years. Sites such as cloudminr.io, GAW Miners and Hashprofit paid once in a time, but then they shutdown their services and ran away with the people's money. So in my opinion, it is recommended to hold onto your Bitcoins until it is the perfect time to invest. Patience is key here  ;D

I agree patience is key, but how long should you keep a currency that's not generating more of itself?
I mean if in one year i can double my BTC input, if i start with 1BTC and go for 5 years, i will still have more than the guy who held 20 BTC from the start. While we're both "waiting" for BTC to raise in value, let say 1000$ per. I will have started with 1BTC vs 20BTC and end up with 12000$ US more than "you".

So is just holding indefinitely the better plan?

Many people that bought bitcoin in 2013 of the price of 1000$ per bitcoin were waiting for it to rise, but now they lost about 80% of it - current bitcoin value is at 235$
Only early adopters before the rise to 1000$ got profit for holding bitcoin.

I don't understand the purpose of the 21 Computer. It's not a miner and cannot make profit. It's just holding the bitcoin network in it - for 400$. It's not an investment, a waste of money. You could download the network for free or you could use websites that contain the network.
Cloud mining website is giving money at the moment, but nothing gives free money forever and at some point will shut down.

Bitcoin prices are unstable at the moment, so it's a good way to start trading with bitcoin.

I guess you can Margin-trade.

For the 21bitcoin computer, we might be looking at some plug and play bitcoin node, which is completely gimmicky but might very well sell. Some people would actually do consider paying 400$ for a PnP with tech support one than 20$ for a RasPi and slap the software on it yourself...

As a asset, the 21 Bitcoin Computer will depreciate in value, moments after you bought it... as a matter of fact, it's depreciating in value, while it's still packaged and on the shelf.

So even if you bought it as a asset to sell later, you will not get a lot for it and the amount of Satoshi's you make from it, will not lead to a ROI.

Cloud mining is proven Ponzi's... Good when you get in early and out fast... If you pull out to late, you will stand a chance to lose everything. So I would rather hoard the 2 BTC.

It's not because there's so many scam out there that all services are scam or Ponzi. Hashnest has to be legit and it's running on actual physical hardware and even though it IS setup to exploit people's money in a way that is safe(risk free) for Bitmain, it is by no mean a Ponzi.

So, a whopping 75%+ is HODLing!!! That's amazing, given the fact that bitcoin price is steadily declining in last two years.

Hashnest would be the only cloud mining service that I would invest on. I've seen that they will be adding the ability to purchase Antminer S7 hashrate soon. I'm keeping my eye on this one as they say that it is very energy efficient with low maintenance fees.  :D

But, I heard, at Hashnest, no one has ever made an ROI!!!

Thats definitively false. Another good way to make profit on Hashnest is trading hash. The dividend you get is just a bonus, meanwhile its apparently more previsible than trading coins since the parameters are much more narrow.

I'll just hold
21 Bitcoin Computer (it will not mine coins by the way...)
Cloud Mining Website    

Well this is the bitcoin discussion board, not the mining board. So i would say that mentioning how the big profit on hashnest is done by day trading the hash on hashnest is appropriate.

Especially since when you are putting money in such services, you're not really mining either, you're just giving money to a company, that will invest it to their own benefit, meanwhile you will get a pretty low return as you will pay very high upkeep costs.

Well that's not a hard option, I would just hold those 2 bitcoins. That 21 Bitcoin computer is overpriced and I don't even know what it serves for except for running a full node maybe. Ok, it is fancy but nothing else to me.

Cloudmining websites are 98% scams. Ok, hashnest is one of the rear ones that is legit but even with them it's not so easy to get ROI. You must know what you are doing otherwise you will lose money.

To be honest, I wouldn't get any. As most people said in this thread, the computer is too expensive and most, if not all cloud mining services are scams.

 None of the above.

 That 21 thing is a bloody joke, not even an option to me. TOTAL waste of money.
 I have zero information on that particular "cloud mining website" but I've seen pretty much NO cloud mining options that were ever profitable - except for the mining site - and $400 for 2 TH is pretty expensive even on a "forever" type contract any more.

 If PACMIC v3 contracts were still available, I'd go that way. I'm very underwhelmed by the v4 contracts.


 My option would be (and is, though I've got a bit more than 2 BTC available) to WAIT to see what happens on miners over the next couple of months. The rumours so far about the upcomming Lketc machines are looking somewhat promising.....

I think I will hold my Bitcoins.

What exactly is the The 21 Bitcoin Computer? (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014RD021C). Is it like the stand-alone Bitcoin node that Bitnodes was offering, except this one has no screen?


EDIT: https://21.co/learn/faq/#what-is-the-21-bitcoin-computer

What is the 21 Bitcoin Chip?
The 21 Bitcoin Chip is an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) specifically designed to provide a constant stream of bitcoin to your computer as a system resource.

Funny!  ;D

Is that for real? A mini ARM PC just like the Arduino or the RasPI (20$) ends up being 400$ because it comes with some software on it based on open source code?

Just wow. If that sell, some people here will make a killing making a image of a RasPI with a pre-setup bitcoincore/mining node where you just need to slap or generate a wallet.dat on it.

All they have to do is copy it to a cheap RasPI and they make 2000% return.

The "21 Bitcoin Computer" is literally the following components (mostly):

- Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (Quad core, 1G Ram, etc)
- 128GB MicroSD card
- A power supply
- A 21Inc special ASIC mining board that sits atop the Raspberry Pi, and includes some kind of shroud with what looks like a small 4mm fan. This board almost certainly powers the Raspberry Pi and is driven via the GPIO pins on Pi.
- Their special software that allows it connect with their servers.

21Inc. makes no specific claim for it as a miner. Should be shipped in about a month. Look it up on Amazon for purchase details and a link to the details associated with what you are buying.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C?keywords=21%20bitcoin%20computer&qid=1444879515&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

You decide from that if you want it. Looks like you won't be required to buy with BTC, but can us a CC. If they don't ship, I'd expect you'll get a full refund.

If you had purchased $400 of BTC on September 21st, you would be "money ahead" in terms of dollars. You would almost certainly be ahead of a "Cloud Mining" service as well.The last 30 days have been kind to "Buy and Hold" kind of folks. 

This is called Magic of Marketing. They add value through awesome packaging. 21.co CEO is an awesome marketeer.

I don't know if its good skills as a marketeer or how oblivious/impulsive the consumer base is. I suppose it works for people that do not care to spend their money efficiently.

It is the same reason why iPhone sales. Most of the iPhone features are available on cheap phones. But, iPhone sales never face a roadblock. It is branding.

Yes, puppet's Cloudmining 101 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=878387.0) already lists cloudmining.website as a ponzi with 7/7 certainty. OP is an affiliate and is just creating threads to promote the ponzi he is a member of.

Unless they reduce the price of the 21 Bitcoin Computer, I will never spend a single cent and just hold my coins until something good and profitable is released (like Bitmain's Antminer S7) The only thing that I like of the Bitcoin Computer is its design.  :)

Its a really silly device. Its basically just a RasPi. Not sure how much ripping off you can hide with nice advertising but, not that much for me. Thats for sure.

I think it would be a cool thing to play with if they reduced the price by 75%. After all it does advertise some software that goes along with it that is nice for Devs.

If the person held 2 BTC, it would have already been worth ~650 USD, i.e. he would have made 250 USD by doing nothing. :)

And a lot of us are good at doing nothing :).  I want to see S7 prices when it comes back.  People at beginning were buying at 230 BTC now it is 330.  That is a huge difference on buying a miner.   If they don't raise it the ones buying at 330 will be getting a much quicker ROI.

I really wonder too. But am i the only one that's wondering if they won't just mine with their future batches, at least while the profitability is this high, instead of selling it? The income they produced when they came on sale has now went up by 35%~.

Running them themselves just got a whole lot more lucrative...

They can just run them, then sell them on their Cloud Website, and then bam if it devalues they lose nothing. If they raise, they gain everything. Hah.

The great thing for them is they can do both.  They throw them on a shelf and do "burn-in" until it sells.  And they make (I'm guessing as they dont release it) but a good profit on machine.

Then they make another machine to sit on the shelf on data center.  So they get best of both worlds as they are dong both.  Also it lets them upgrade when they want to.  For example sellng their used S5's they got good profit off them, and it allowed them to bump up to S7's.  So they really are in a win/win stuaton.

All your calculations are based on the assumption that price will hold at 330+. But, history says, it wont. It will go down to ~200 again and then rebound from there.

I doubt it will get down to ~200, but I just bet a fair bit that it's going to drop, I'd guess more likely back into the $230-$250 range probably before year end.

The price went up to 310$ before, 325$~ this time and went down to 220$ before, so probably 235$ this time. Its purely speculation but there are fair chances of the pattern repeating, until it get broken, which it hasn't yet.

But profitability is still decent in the 240$~260$ range so works for me. People just now that thought cloud mining just became lucrative are probably going to get disappointed though. The BTC price is dropping now and the difficulty is going to make a big leap this time.

well it's not the case as we are running again for the 350 mark it seems that it was not a fake pump this time

this can seriously help casual mininers joining the game, 50% more in price is not a joke it offer a great boost to anyone

Another 50 percent jump would be huge for home and hobby miners.  Assuming the last jump of around 100 sticks... that is already a huge bump.

So if we can get more then that that is huge money really in the scheme of home/hobby miners.  Time will tell what it is seems like we might be around current value for a bit as market adjusts.

On currently available miners, 50% jump isn't a lot - especially as fast as diff has been climbing since the S5+ showed up.
Great for those of us that already have working miners, not much help if you don't already have the hardware in place and running as it has very little effect on chance of RoI for those that don't have very cheap electric.

 Bitmain pricing tendancies, and lack of recent S7 availability, doesn't help any.

Cloudmining is a pure ponzi I have to say but 21 Bitcoin Computer? I have no idea what's for but they claim nothing about its capable of mining. All I see is selling product, buying stuff.... :P

there is a reduction of 5.1% on the earning for one s5(it was 0.098 remember our dialogue about it?), now this is 0.093, not a big change, but the price is now 366, when it was 230, this is near 60%

in other words, the price is increasing so fast that diff can't keep with it, this is the perfect opportunity for some casual miners to jump in for a quick buck and sell their gear if the price would stop climbing

Correct but it would be unwise to go crazy at it and recommend to anyone to dive right in. The price went up sharply before and it then went down sharply later on, several time. Its good to keep in mind that the price will drop again at some point.

No idea when it will start and where it will end, but it would be unwise to do a big investment if you will only get a return if the prices stay at this level.

The ones who did the best are actually the ones who sold gear during 230's day's and invested right back into BTC.  I sold my S4's.

I played it safe and did not re-invest I kept it out for electricity.  I could have gained over 1k today if I just would have invested.  Today if you sell you are buying BTC at a new high price which seems to just keep going up.

You might have ended up losing as well. Because no one knows the top/bottom of the price during a swing.

 Seems to have been a short-term phenominon, probably fueled by that BTCC taking payments directly announcement.
 Price has slid quite a bit already since the peak, and seems to have settled into a steady drop mode (I'm guessing it won't go all the way back down to $230 but I wouldn't bet against $250 by year end).

 If you already have gear, this was a very nice "help achieve RoI and even some actual profit" situation - but it's not looking like anything more than a short-term bump and NOT enough to make it likely you will achieve RoI on anything currently available if you buy now and you DON'T have very cheap electric.