It's Happening .... The secrets of 21 inc revealed, and its what we hoped for.

[BitUsher]

Decentralization of mining.

Mass adoption with subsidized or free consumable items with multiple products to insure at least one is successful.

Distribution of bitcoin assets with shared profits between the consumer and the manufacturer in a self sustaining business strategy.

116 million in venture capital to insure they can fund development and manufacturing of low cost ASIC appliances.

The core business plan it turns out will be embedding ASIC bitcoin mining chips into everyday devices like USB battery chargers, routers, printers, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and — the piece de resistance — chipsets to be used by Internet of Stuff devices.

According to our knowledgable sources, 21 Inc plans to “onboard” customers by giving many of these devices away for free,

This is simply a blindingly good business plan, exotically gorgeous in fact. For of course the cost of the electricity required to mine for bitcoin is very much larger than that 25 per cent of the value of the bitcoin that we get to keep.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/06/bubblicious_bitcoin_bonkers_business_bods/

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/04/30/2127543/meet-the-company-that-wants-to-put-a-bitcoin-miner-in-your-toaster/

[Klestin]

This is simply a blindingly good business plan, exotically gorgeous in fact. For of course the cost of the electricity required to mine for bitcoin is very much larger than that 25 per cent of the value of the bitcoin that we get to keep.

For anyone who has to pay for their electricity, this is a horrid idea.  If the heat generated from the bitcoin miner isn't directly beneficial to the user, then the cost of the electricity spent mining must be weighed against the bitcoins earned.  With a decently efficient chip, and with 100% of the results kept, this is very nearly a wash right now.  At 25%, it amounts to theft.

This type of thing could make sense in a space heater or coffee warmer, but that's about it.

[TheRealSteve]

'guess I'll choose this thread to respond to
( dupe thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053412 )

The idea of mining using appliances - including toasters - has come up before;
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=301742.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=864943.0

The business model of tossing a bunch of these out for free and asking for a non-minor fee (75%) might be an interesting one.  You have to wonder what sort of mining power they'd actually envisioning, though - i.e. something that (over all units) actually makes some double-digit percentage of the network hashing power, or a bunch of underpowered chips all playing the lottery.

Then again, this is all still based on an FT blog entry and not hard data.  I'll wait for the Chinese interview to get published.

[BitUsher]

This is simply a blindingly good business plan, exotically gorgeous in fact. For of course the cost of the electricity required to mine for bitcoin is very much larger than that 25 per cent of the value of the bitcoin that we get to keep.

For anyone who has to pay for their electricity, this is a horrid idea.  If the heat generated from the bitcoin miner isn't directly beneficial to the user, then the cost of the electricity spent mining must be weighed against the bitcoins earned.  With a decently efficient chip, and with 100% of the results kept, this is very nearly a wash right now.  At 25%, it amounts to theft.

This type of thing could make sense in a space heater or coffee warmer, but that's about it.

You bring up a fair concern. For some people the cost of electricity does not justify the savings on the free appliance and 25% mining /tx fees rewards. I would expect that there will be reviews and guides which go over the numbers and indicate which appliances are most efficient and agree the items which are used for heating like space heaters , coffee warmers , dehydrators, water heaters , ect... are likely to become the best candidates.

With 116million in backing and an aggressive campaign to make many different types of products they have a good chance of finding at least one product that is a home run and gets adopted by many.

[Alley]

This wil be for non bitcoin experts that dont understand electricity costs.  They will jump at a cheap appliance that makes them bitcoin.

[BitUsher]

This wil be for non bitcoin experts that dont understand electricity costs.  They will jump at a cheap appliance that makes them bitcoin.

Yes, this will likely also happen just like with mining in general today. Most small time miners who cannot properly plan for difficulty adjusting and do the math make unwise investments in ASICs and fail to make a ROI.

The difference here is the risk is minimal because there is little to no upfront costs and as soon as the user determines the electricity costs are to high they can stop mining or find cheaper electricity.

Either way , if it is done as a wise investment or flawed one mining will become more decentralized and new users will get exposed to bitcoin which will strengthen our ecosystem.

[Amph]

This is simply a blindingly good business plan, exotically gorgeous in fact. For of course the cost of the electricity required to mine for bitcoin is very much larger than that 25 per cent of the value of the bitcoin that we get to keep.

For anyone who has to pay for their electricity, this is a horrid idea.  If the heat generated from the bitcoin miner isn't directly beneficial to the user, then the cost of the electricity spent mining must be weighed against the bitcoins earned.  With a decently efficient chip, and with 100% of the results kept, this is very nearly a wash right now.  At 25%, it amounts to theft.

This type of thing could make sense in a space heater or coffee warmer, but that's about it.

not to mention the earning would be abysmally low it would not compete even with a faucet, unless they are planning to build-in last asic generation, but i doubt

[BitUsher]

not to mention the earning would be abysmally low it would not compete even with a faucet, unless they are planning to build-in last asic generation, but i doubt

I like to keep my coffee warm throughout the day. Right now my coffee makers and warmers aren't free, don't pay me some dust, and simply waste electricity doing their job. What happens when coffee warmers are given away for free that actually do something rather than just heat my coffee?

[NeuroticFish]

Hmmm... I fear that this will make mining even more centralized.
In order that "your toaster" actually give you anything, it will have to be connected to a pool, else it will have too small chance to return even the 25%.
Also I fear that they may get hardcoded to a couple of 21 Inc owned pools, which will just simply have 75% pool fee...

The idea is interesting, but there are (far) too many things they can do wrong. (Electricity price/theft included).
Let's see what happens next...

[BitUsher]

Hmmm... I fear that this will make mining even more centralized.
In order that "your toaster" actually give you anything, it will have to be connected to a pool, else it will have too small chance to return even the 25%.
Also I fear that they may get hardcoded to a couple of 21 Inc owned pools, which will just simply have 75% pool fee...

The idea is interesting, but there are (far) too many things they can do wrong. (Electricity price/theft included).
Let's see what happens next...

hmm... interesting thoughts ... The reverse could also be true if someone hacks the hardware and or firmware to get 100% of mining payouts.

Another interesting thought is what happens to all the current manufacturers of appliances when their competitor is giving out free to heavily discounted appliances? Do they have to start producing ASIC appliances as well to compete?

[acquafredda]

If it’s free you’re probably the product.

Now, there is, we’d argue, a deep-seated problem with any business model that relies on a perpetual free lunch to maintain its bottom line. Our contacts, for example, note that bitcoin is already trading below 21 Inc’s worst-case projected price scenario, upon which the original business plan was based.

But there’s something broader. 21 Inc claims to be democratising and decommoditising bitcoin but seems to be openly corporatising mining by promising to turn everyone into a poorly paid employee.

As Jaron Lanier, author of Who Owns the Future?, has opined in the past, it is efforts like these that stand to turn Bitcoin into a plutocracy generating machine.

Quote from the article which is so tremendously true!
Nothing is free, maybe only the air you breathe that is polluted anyway...

Facebook is free... and the user is the product.
Gmail is free... and the user is the product.
Twitter is free... and the user is the product.

And so on...

[BitUsher]

If it’s free you’re probably the product.
Nothing is free, maybe only the air you breathe that is polluted anyway...

In a market of brutal competition where miners have to pay for security, warehouse leases, engineers, cheap electrical contracts, ect ... 21 Inc is attempting to off load those costs onto the user.

Profits will be realized through greater efficiencies -

Security is no longer needed anymore because there is no longer a warehouse full of expensive ASIC's to protect. There are millions of coffee warmers spread across homes that aren't worth the effort stealing each one.

Electricity can be free with certain products. If I can use the waste heat from ASICs to warm a cup of tea or coffee than I have just put that wasted energy to use.

No Warehouse rent needed or insurance as mining is decentralized and replacing an existing appliance in a home.

[S4VV4S]

If it’s free you’re probably the product.
Nothing is free, maybe only the air you breathe that is polluted anyway...

In a market of brutal competition where miners have to pay for security, warehouse leases, engineers, cheap electrical contracts, ect ... 21 Inc is attempting to off load those costs onto the user.

Profits will be realized through greater efficiencies -

Security is no longer needed anymore because there is no longer a warehouse full of expensive ASIC's to protect. There are millions of coffee warmers spread across homes that aren't worth the effort stealing each one.

Electricity can be free with certain products. If I can use the waste heat from ASICs to warm a cup of tea or coffee than I have just put that wasted energy to use.

No Warehouse rent needed or insurance as mining is decentralized and replacing an existing appliance in a home.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

[RodeoX]

Bam! Assuming there will be a wallet functionality, this is what I thought and hoped they were doing!

Fricking huge for bitcoin!!!!  

[S4VV4S]

If it’s free you’re probably the product.
Nothing is free, maybe only the air you breathe that is polluted anyway...

In a market of brutal competition where miners have to pay for security, warehouse leases, engineers, cheap electrical contracts, ect ... 21 Inc is attempting to off load those costs onto the user.

Profits will be realized through greater efficiencies -

Security is no longer needed anymore because there is no longer a warehouse full of expensive ASIC's to protect. There are millions of coffee warmers spread across homes that aren't worth the effort stealing each one.

Electricity can be free with certain products. If I can use the waste heat from ASICs to warm a cup of tea or coffee than I have just put that wasted energy to use.

No Warehouse rent needed or insurance as mining is decentralized and replacing an existing appliance in a home.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

I mean we should expect that, why wouldn't they? The miners are going to be preconfigured for this to work the way they want, what is more reliable then their own pool?

Why not P2Pool?

[louise123]

So that's what they been up to?
Hmm, I don't know if I should be glad or not.

We all know that miners tend to get really hot.
What if some appliance catches fire?
Would that be a good thing for Bitcoin?

[BitUsher]

I wonder how many TH/s it takes to toast bread in 2 minutes   . The idea is good but there aren't enough everyday items we use just for the heat, I can't think of too many.

Yes, but all it takes is one or two products. Personally I think most of the products in the article are non starters including the toaster for ASIC's and the journalists were deliberately misled so they didn't leak the real products which could be competitive in the market.

I can think of a few products that have a chance of working: electric space heaters, coffee/tea warmers, and  hot water heaters are a few examples.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

Agreed. Many scenarios could play out with further competition into appliance creating multiple new pools competing with older pools. A 21 Inc pool, a Samsung pool, a GE mining pool , ect...

... or if our hand is forced we may have to reverse enineer one of their products and create our own crowdfunded ASIC appliances that communicate with p2p pools.

[Amph]

If it’s free you’re probably the product.
Nothing is free, maybe only the air you breathe that is polluted anyway...

In a market of brutal competition where miners have to pay for security, warehouse leases, engineers, cheap electrical contracts, ect ... 21 Inc is attempting to off load those costs onto the user.

Profits will be realized through greater efficiencies -

Security is no longer needed anymore because there is no longer a warehouse full of expensive ASIC's to protect. There are millions of coffee warmers spread across homes that aren't worth the effort stealing each one.

Electricity can be free with certain products. If I can use the waste heat from ASICs to warm a cup of tea or coffee than I have just put that wasted energy to use.

No Warehouse rent needed or insurance as mining is decentralized and replacing an existing appliance in a home.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

I mean we should expect that, why wouldn't they? The miners are going to be preconfigured for this to work the way they want, what is more reliable then their own pool?

if their pool is made only of these asic, then it would be easy to spot, because they would have many down time, due to the appliances not being used all the time, also their pool would have a bad % profit because it will run with a low hashrate overall, i mean all those appliances can't compete even with the existing smallest pool

because of this, i think they will use an existing pool

[louise123]

I wonder how many TH/s it takes to toast bread in 2 minutes   . The idea is good but there aren't enough everyday items we use just for the heat, I can't think of too many.

Yes, but all it takes is one or two products. Personally I think most of the products in the article are non starters including the toaster for ASIC's and the journalists were deliberately misled so they didn't leak the real products which could be competitive in the market.

I can think of a few products that have a chance of working: electric space heaters, coffee/tea warmers, and  hot water heaters are a few examples.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

Agreed. Many scenarios could play out with further competition into appliance creating multiple new pools competing with older pools. A 21 Inc pool, a Samsung pool, a GE mining pool , ect...

... or if our hand is forced we may have to reverse enineer one of their products and create our own crowdfunded ASIC appliances that communicate with p2p pools.

Well, why not hack their appliances (which will be our property since bought) and have them point to any pool that we want?

[S4VV4S]

I wonder how many TH/s it takes to toast bread in 2 minutes   . The idea is good but there aren't enough everyday items we use just for the heat, I can't think of too many.

Yes, but all it takes is one or two products. Personally I think most of the products in the article are non starters including the toaster for ASIC's and the journalists were deliberately misled so they didn't leak the real products which could be competitive in the market.

I can think of a few products that have a chance of working: electric space heaters, coffee/tea warmers, and  hot water heaters are a few examples.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

Agreed. Many scenarios could play out with further competition into appliance creating multiple new pools competing with older pools. A 21 Inc pool, a Samsung pool, a GE mining pool , ect...

... or if our hand is forced we may have to reverse enineer one of their products and create our own crowdfunded ASIC appliances that communicate with p2p pools.

Well, why not hack their appliances (which will be our property since bought) and have them point to any pool that we want?

^^^ That.
What is stopping us from doing that?

[BitUsher]

I wonder how many TH/s it takes to toast bread in 2 minutes   . The idea is good but there aren't enough everyday items we use just for the heat, I can't think of too many.

Yes, but all it takes is one or two products. Personally I think most of the products in the article are non starters including the toaster for ASIC's and the journalists were deliberately misled so they didn't leak the real products which could be competitive in the market.

I can think of a few products that have a chance of working: electric space heaters, coffee/tea warmers, and  hot water heaters are a few examples.

That, you do not know.

You have no idea what are the plans of 21 inc.
maybe they will set up their own pool where these new "miners" will mine.

Agreed. Many scenarios could play out with further competition into appliance creating multiple new pools competing with older pools. A 21 Inc pool, a Samsung pool, a GE mining pool , ect...

... or if our hand is forced we may have to reverse enineer one of their products and create our own crowdfunded ASIC appliances that communicate with p2p pools.

Well, why not hack their appliances (which will be our property since bought) and have them point to any pool that we want?

^^^ That.
What is stopping us from doing that?

Proper design can make chips very difficult to reverse engineer or hack. I am sure they are considering these implications.

[BitUsher]

Yes but is it worth the extra money and time to engineer such blocks when only maybe 2% of the people they give free coffee warmers to even care or know what they're doing?

Yes, because all it takes is a few individuals or one company that offers to buy the free coffee warmer for 10 dollars and to hack and than mine 100% themselves.

Example - It is well known that many console manufacturers subsidize or sell at cost the hardware in hope of recouping profits off the games. When playstation 3 was first released it came with OtherOS which allowed linux to be installed. Hobbyists were buying up consoles in order to get much cheaper hardware and make linux rigs with decent specs. Sony later removed OtherOS support to prevent this from happening and before a few of the hobbyists started a company reselling playstations as cheaper linux desktops.  

[GingerAle]

my favorite lines from that register article:

I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

[Alley]

Anybody that has the knowledge to hack this device has the knowledge to also know that even at 100% income there still losing money after electricity cost.  I don't see this as a issue.  I'm smart enough to know I'm going to buy a $20 toaster rather then a $10 asic toaster that raises my electric bill a few bucks a month.  These products are for people that will never look into how mining works.

[acquafredda]

my favorite lines from that register article:

I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

[louise123]

my favorite lines from that register article:

I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

I will agree with that also.
Besides, once the people get informed, I doubt they will go for it.

[louise123]

my favorite lines from that register article:

I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

I will agree with that also.
Besides, once the people get informed, I doubt they will go for it.

I disagree if you're able to buy a TV with the same specs of another for 20 -30% cheaper because it's running an asic are you really going to care? Even though there might be a few dollar difference in electric use?

Yes, if I know about the extra charges, and let's not forget the potential dangers, then I wont.
I would rather pay that little extra and know that I can sleep more peaceful.

[gentlemand]

So The Register writes an article about an article from the Financial Times.

One of the opening lines from the FT is "All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding"

There are no facts, no quotes from anyone from 21 or anyone who has a bleeding clue.

Their guesswork sounds like a pretty dumb idea. It's worth calling it a dumb idea if the people they're guessing about actually confirm it.

[Kaneki]

my favorite lines from that register article:

I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

I will agree with that also.
Besides, once the people get informed, I doubt they will go for it.

I disagree if you're able to buy a TV with the same specs of another for 20 -30% cheaper because it's running an asic are you really going to care? Even though there might be a few dollar difference in electric use?

Yes, if I know about the extra charges, and let's not forget the potential dangers, then I wont.
I would rather pay that little extra and know that I can sleep more peaceful.

if this stupid idea to materialize, it has the potential to worsen the reputation of Bitcoin in people's

[futureofbitcoin]

i see too many assumptions in this thread. Or maybe you guys know something I don't.


1. Are the applicances going to make use of the heat generated by the ASIC, or, are they just bundling an ASIC with a random appliance?

2. Can you turn it off whenever you want?

It seems that people automatically assume that you can't turn it off or something. Which, in a sense is obviously not true since you can just unplug it. But assuming it's something that shouldn't be unplugged often like, I dunno, lights or something, you guys are assuming that it'll run forever costing you electricity.

If you can just turn it off whenever you want, then it's not really costing you electricity, since you would've spent that electricity anyway. Unless, of course, the ASIC uses additional electricity than what the appliance otherwise would use.

Anyway, too many assumptions, too many unknowns.

[louise123]

i see too many assumptions in this thread. Or maybe you guys know something I don't.


1. Are the applicances going to make use of the heat generated by the ASIC, or, are they just bundling an ASIC with a random appliance?

2. Can you turn it off whenever you want?

It seems that people automatically assume that you can't turn it off or something. Which, in a sense is obviously not true since you can just unplug it. But assuming it's something that shouldn't be unplugged often like, I dunno, lights or something, you guys are assuming that it'll run forever costing you electricity.

If you can just turn it off whenever you want, then it's not really costing you electricity, since you would've spent that electricity anyway. Unless, of course, the ASIC uses additional electricity than what the appliance otherwise would use.

Anyway, too many assumptions, too many unknowns.

Well, I suppose you can say that we are speculating based on what we know so far.
Then again, only time will tell what this thing truly is.

[johnyj]

How do they marketing this toaster ?  I have never used any toaster since 10 years ago 

There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer 

[TheRealSteve]

There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer  

I think you'll find there's miners in South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, too  Not sure about Antarctica.  Could be a nice PR stunt for Bitmain though

[ebliever]

Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....

[SpanishSoldier]

It was a fascinating idea though....

....and the idea has got sold to raise anough money for them. The question is... will we see an execution or see the same fate as of ethereum ? If they come to public to raise more money without the product then I'd doubt their intention.

[NattyLiteCoin]

I don't know why everyone's hung up heating shit is even in the discussion. I doubt the intent is to integrate a 2Th/s miner in a fuckin' toaster, moreso a collection of 20GH/s devices in multiple appliances in households across the world. Imagine living in a world where literally every one of your neighbors and friends is contributing to the security of the BTC network and not even thinking about it.

I'm for this.  I really hope this happens.

[R2D221]

There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer  

I think you'll find there's miners in South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, too  Not sure about Antarctica.  Could be a nice PR stunt for Bitmain though

I don't think Antarctica has cheap electricity, though.

[futureofbitcoin]

What about getting that free TV, or whatever, then rip out the ASIC?


If they gave out free laptops, I'd totally get one.

[gentlemand]

Is there any proof that any of this is true? I can't find a shred of it.

[TheRealSteve]

Is there any proof that any of this is true? I can't find a shred of it.

Nope.

Then again, this is all still based on an FT blog entry and not hard data.  I'll wait for the Chinese interview to get published.

It was actually discussed before - but I guess this thread gained better traction   Gotta use clickbaity titles.. "You Won't Believe What 21 Inc. Are Planning For Bitcoin!"

[Cryddit]

This isn't necessarily a ripoff.  This is for people who'd be using the power to generate heat anyway.  Any of these appliances that doesn't require the generation of heat for its own sake though, is going to be a dead loss when generating heat for the production of bitcoin.

I'm kind of liking this for some purposes, though mostly silly ones.  For example England now has a law that says you can't have hair dryers that are over 1 KWatt because that's a waste of electricity.  But if you can have a Bitcoin mining machine that, as a side effect, dries your hair ....  

Also?  Unlike a lot of the crap which people have released on the consumer market that wasn't really possible to secure against people hacking it to their own purposes, this is *COMPLETELY* secureable.  

It doesn't require simultaneous delivery of and obscurement of information, such as all the copy-protection crap.  It doesn't require keys the customer could use to spoof it to be present in the device, like so many other kinds of crypto snake oil.  I could easily produce these devices using a public key to check signatures on getwork and encrypt responses, bake it directly into silicon, and even if you reverse-engineer the silicon and extract the public key, you couldn't use it without the private key to get the device (or any other device using that key pair) talking to a different pool.  

As the consumer, your choices are to let it have network access, or not.  

Interestingly, if you let it have network access, and its communications are encrypted, there's no way to know what it's communicating FROM INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.  The power budget for hacking wifi passwords isn't much different from the power budget for bitcoin mining, for example, and a lot of these "appliances"  have subassemblies which provide side channels that could be used as microphones, etc.  

[oblivi]

It was a fascinating idea though....

....and the idea has got sold to raise anough money for them. The question is... will we see an execution or see the same fate as of ethereum ? If they come to public to raise more money without the product then I'd doubt their intention.

Seems like another IPO scam, just like Ethereum. Vitalik must be enjoying all that BTC that he criticized. As of right now the only worth IPO investing at was Maidsafe, the roadmap is going on great.

[mercistheman]

Haven't read the whole thread but wouldn't this be perfect for renters that don't have to pay electric bills?

[ebliever]

Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....

What about naturally cold climates though? I am sure many Russians wouldn't mind their tv spewing out extra heat at a discounted price versus other tv's.

The problem is people generally have a cheaper source of heat than electricity. Back when I started mining altcoins in Jan. 2014, we were having a wildly cold winter in Illinois, spiking propane prices through the roof to the point that the governor waived all restrictions on propane delivery truckers. So I was glad to be heating half my house with my rig instead of paying $5-6/gallon of propane at its peak. But I also did the math and realized my breakeven point was $2.71/gallon for propane, and normal propane prices around here were under $2. So once the altcoin market withered it no longer made sense to mine, even this past winter. The propane was just cheaper. Natural gas is cheaper yet, wood and corn stove heating is real cheap, and increasing numbers of folks have geothermal or other low-cost systems.

So yeah, some people will see the benefit of it, or won't do the math and think they are benefiting by getting bitcoin miners. But they will have to hunt for those people. Until I can see some math on their projected earnings/device, I've got to be skeptical. I do like the potential for decentralization though, I admit.

[louise123]

Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....

Someone with some sense.

Most others seem to think that "this is what Bitcoin needs".....

Something tells me that 21 Inc is gonna pull a scam.

Something like this is not feasible and I am surprised big names invested in this.

[Amph]

I don't know why everyone's hung up heating shit is even in the discussion. I doubt the intent is to integrate a 2Th/s miner in a fuckin' toaster, moreso a collection of 20GH/s devices in multiple appliances in households across the world. Imagine living in a world where literally every one of your neighbors and friends is contributing to the security of the BTC network and not even thinking about it.

I'm for this.  I really hope this happens.

let's say that every house can performs 20 x 5 = 100 gh/s, let's say that there are an average of 3 people per house, and let's assume 1B house

so we get 100B of gh/s, equal to 100 exabyte, not bad i guess, much higher than the current total hash

[louise123]

I don't know why everyone's hung up heating shit is even in the discussion. I doubt the intent is to integrate a 2Th/s miner in a fuckin' toaster, moreso a collection of 20GH/s devices in multiple appliances in households across the world. Imagine living in a world where literally every one of your neighbors and friends is contributing to the security of the BTC network and not even thinking about it.

I'm for this.  I really hope this happens.

I can most certainly imagine that.
We the consumers contribute to keeping the Bitcoin network secure and 21 Inc's pockets full.
Hmm, I think I 'll pass.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

So The Register writes an article about an article from the Financial Times.

One of the opening lines from the FT is "All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding"

There are no facts, no quotes from anyone from 21 or anyone who has a bleeding clue.

Their guesswork sounds like a pretty dumb idea. It's worth calling it a dumb idea if the people they're guessing about actually confirm it.

Exactly. Everyone in this thread (and the other recent one) is arguing over a Financial Times writer's speculation about what 21 Inc. might do, based on almost no evidence. That writer just happened to phrase her speculation in such a self-assured way that a writer for The Register thought she was actually reporting facts.

Here's how it happened. This in the Financial Times:

All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding

Became this in The Register:

But the Financial Times tells us that that is not the plan. And this was published on April 30, not 1.

The core business plan it turns out will be embedding ASIC bitcoin mining chips into everyday devices like USB battery chargers, routers, printers, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and — the piece de resistance — chipsets to be used by Internet of Stuff devices.

And now people think it's a fact. It's simply a reporter's idle speculation reported as fact by another reporter. It may be an interesting idea, but it has nothing to do with any released plan by 21 Inc.

[Troonetpt]

No matter how they can produce low cost ASIC, the result is the same.
If we can produce low cost ASIC and can embed it into everyday devices, the cost much be very very low.
And if i want make profit from mining, i have to and i could buy lots of asic miner, the hashrate will rise to make the everyday devices hardly to mine any bitcoin.

[SebastianJu]

I dont see this succeeding. Those miners wont be very effective because they arent build as sole miners and you have to make compromises which will lower hashrate.

Next thing is... they want to make the product cheaper because the seller will get part of the profit? So will the seller give you a contract that you have to have the device enabled for the next month? He cant make sure that the miners will run so he wont make a sure profit.

Saying that... these chips arent cheap too. They have to be used effectively.

And next thing is the power cost that most buyers wont take into account.

Overall i cant believe that they got so many investments. Is there a trick behind or was the idea simply so convincing?

[NUFCrichard]

It does sound like a mine field to me.  On the one hand, they need to put ASICs in everyday electronics, do I then get the electronic cheaper as they will profit from my mining, or does it cost more, because of the chip inside? If it's cheaper, can I just remove the ASIC and have a cheap electronic?

Is it going to work through mobile internet or WLAN? Do you trust foreign objects using your WLAN that you can't control?

Will 21 inc only sell to places that have cheap electricity, or are they happy to mine at a loss as long as I am paying for the electricity?
Do I need to sign a contract with them for a toaster/microwave/kettle? Will it only mine when in active use, or whenever it is plugged in?

Lots of questions, they could all have elegant answers, but I will be surprised if it works well!

[gentlemand]

Overall i cant believe that they got so many investments. Is there a trick behind or was the idea simply so convincing?

It's moronic speculative twaddle. We still know nothing about 21's plans.

[R2D221]

So The Register writes an article about an article from the Financial Times.

One of the opening lines from the FT is "All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding"

There are no facts, no quotes from anyone from 21 or anyone who has a bleeding clue.

Their guesswork sounds like a pretty dumb idea. It's worth calling it a dumb idea if the people they're guessing about actually confirm it.

Exactly. Everyone in this thread (and the other recent one) is arguing over a Financial Times writer's speculation about what 21 Inc. might do, based on almost no evidence. That writer just happened to phrase her speculation in such a self-assured way that a writer for The Register thought she was actually reporting facts.

Here's how it happened. This in the Financial Times:

All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding

Became this in The Register:

But the Financial Times tells us that that is not the plan. And this was published on April 30, not 1.

The core business plan it turns out will be embedding ASIC bitcoin mining chips into everyday devices like USB battery chargers, routers, printers, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and — the piece de resistance — chipsets to be used by Internet of Stuff devices.

And now people think it's a fact. It's simply a reporter's idle speculation reported as fact by another reporter. It may be an interesting idea, but it has nothing to do with any released plan by 21 Inc.

So, the “ASICs for everyone” idea came from the The Register author? How did they come up with it, anyway?

[gentlemand]

So, the “ASICs for everyone” idea came from the The Register author? How did they come up with it, anyway?

Because all the stupid shit did was copy the FT writer's total guesswork.

[crazyivan]

This still does not tell us much about them. However, having in mind the size of the investment, this must be something really good.

[TheRealSteve]

This still does not tell us much about them. However, having in mind the size of the investment, this must be something really good.

Must it?  In the space of Bitcoin, google around to see what companies got VC investment, and see where they are now / how they're conducting business.  What's potentially good for investors is not necessarily good for the public.

[TheRealSteve]

What is good for investors is usually something that is in demand or a problem for the public, if there is no public demand or want for something it will waste money and die.

That's not necessarily true.  For example, an investor in Snapchat might really not give a hoot about people wanting a platform on which they can exchange semi-temporary pictures with captions - but they could be very interested in the 'anonymized' database that this establishes and the potential for selling that 'aggregrate' data down the line.  That said investment money may be what keeps something like Snapchat operating could be considered 'good' for the public, but that's more of a symbiotic relationship between 'good fors' than that they overlap or are to be considered the same.
Similarly - just as an example - the multiple investment rounds in BitFury are good for the public because it means that there's at least one more major player mining away on the network - but it's done nothing for the public at large in terms of availability of their product (be that chips, miners, contracts, etc. - setting aside whatever consumer transactions device they were talking about). The investments reflect this, as the interest is in having an entity with mining power around which other services can be built.

[futureofbitcoin]

What is good for investors is usually something that is in demand or a problem for the public, if there is no public demand or want for something it will waste money and die.

That's not necessarily true.  For example, an investor in Snapchat might really not give a hoot about people wanting a platform on which they can exchange semi-temporary pictures with captions - but they could be very interested in the 'anonymized' database that this establishes and the potential for selling that 'aggregrate' data down the line.  That said investment money may be what keeps something like Snapchat operating could be considered 'good' for the public, but that's more of a symbiotic relationship between 'good fors' than that they overlap or are to be considered the same.
Similarly - just as an example - the multiple investment rounds in BitFury are good for the public because it means that there's at least one more major player mining away on the network - but it's done nothing for the public at large in terms of availability of their product (be that chips, miners, contracts, etc. - setting aside whatever consumer transactions device they were talking about). The investments reflect this, as the interest is in having an entity with mining power around which other services can be built.

In an effort to seem intelligent, your argument misses the point to begin with. No matter what reason an investor makes the investment, a necessary truth is that this investor believes the company won't go bankrupt, at least not before he gets what he wants. Which pretty much necessarily means the company will need costumers. Which pretty much necessarily means that the company is providing something that some people want to use.

So in the end, it doesn't matter why an investor wants to invest. By the act of investing, especially such a large amount like in 21 inc., chances are the company is something that potentially many people will want to use.

[TheRealSteve]

In an effort to seem intelligent, your argument misses the point to begin with. No matter what reason an investor makes the investment, a necessary truth is that this investor believes the company won't go bankrupt, at least not before he gets what he wants. Which pretty much necessarily means the company will need costumers. Which pretty much necessarily means that the company is providing something that some people want to use.

So in the end, it doesn't matter why an investor wants to invest. By the act of investing, especially such a large amount like in 21 inc., chances are the company is something that potentially many people will want to use.

"In an effort to seem intelligent" - thanks for that

If the point is that people will invest because they expect to make money - sure enough.  I can invest in a patent troll providing funds to bolster their portfolio, for example, expecting to make money by having them do the legwork of finding potential infringing parties and threatening to sue them.  They, too, provide a service that some people want to use - even if it's primarily themselves.  Would you equate that with something that is 'good for the public' as well?;

Let me put it slightly differently... 'good for the public' may well apply - but people here, the investors, the company, etc. may not all agree on what constitutes 'the public'.

[futureofbitcoin]

Certainly I wouldn't expect VCs, especially ones like Marc Andressen to invest in something like that.

Of course, to begin with, what is "good for public" anyway. Quite hard to define.

In the particular case for bitcoin, since I am not one of those libertarian ideologists, I don't mind more centralization or government control or whatever. As long as bitcoin goes mainstream and goes up in VALUE (real value, not necessarily just against fiat) I say it's a good thing. And at this point, I think any company that isn't a complete scam, like a ponzi or whatever is probably good for bitcoin, because it means that there are more use cases (or more choices). Even if it doesn't necessarily benefit all bitcoiners (or even a majority of them).

[OBAViJEST]

In an effort to seem intelligent, your argument misses the point to begin with.

Props for turning a discussion into an argument; extra points for starting if off with an insult!

Which pretty much necessarily

...although I'd refrain from calling other people idiots from now on.

[TheRealSteve]

Patent trolls are a scumbag thing that will disappear when we change our [...] laws

Let's hope so - at least in the U.S. there seems to be bipartisan support.  And yes, that was definitely an extreme end example

And at this point, I think any company that isn't a complete scam, like a ponzi or whatever is probably good for bitcoin, because it means that there are more use cases (or more choices). Even if it doesn't necessarily benefit all bitcoiners (or even a majority of them).

Oh yeah, in those terms, definitely a good thing - even speculation, to an extent, is a good thing as at least it keeps people interested

[futureofbitcoin]

Props for turning a discussion into an argument; extra points for starting if off with an insult!

Semantics aside of whether something is a discussion or argument, I'm sorry if that came off as an insult. I just find that in such discussions/arguments, people often get too deep into it, trying to "win", and eventually everyone loses sight of the big picture and it becomes completely derailed from the original topic. Happens to me too.

[fdylstyx]

Big thread, I actually read it all and the question that just kept coming at me is why don't they (whoever "they" may be) just work a deal with the electricity providers. A asiac chip in every meter. A slight raise in rates across the board will benefit both the mining and the electric companies.

The paying customers accept that some of the power they buy is a good thing. Even though they don't understand decentralization any better than they understand why some places experience brownouts and others never do but they do understand less banking fees and naturally want to get them even if it means another card in their wallet or an app on their phone.

fdyl

Edit: I forgot to mention the rebate that the customers would get each quarter. Each according to their average usage. Win, win, win.

[fdylstyx]

Big thread, I actually read it all and the question that just kept coming at me is why don't they (whoever "they" may be) just work a deal with the electricity providers. A asiac chip in every meter. A slight raise in rates across the board will benefit both the mining and the electric companies.

The paying customers accept that some of the power they buy is a good thing. Even though they don't understand decentralization any better than they understand why some places experience brownouts and others never do but they do understand less banking fees and naturally want to get them even if it means another card in their wallet or an app on their phone.

fdyl

Maybe they'll just throw out a ton of water powered turbines in the ocean that use the waves to generate power and have an air tight container for large miners that run ocean water through to cool themselves. In all reality they aren't going to do anything crazy amazing or out there without public knowledge, investors aren't going to throw down money on what ifs.

That seems more centralized, but a great idea just the same. Until some diver is paid to attach a few strategically placed charges. I thought the idea of decentralization was spreading the wealth as far and wide as possible.

[OBAViJEST]

Props for turning a discussion into an argument; extra points for starting if off with an insult!

Semantics aside of whether something is a discussion or argument, I'm sorry if that came off as an insult. I just find that in such discussions/arguments, people often get too deep into it, trying to "win", and eventually everyone loses sight of the big picture and it becomes completely derailed from the original topic. Happens to me too.

Hehe no worries man!  I just wanted to bring things back to baseline

Regarding what you've just said - that's an ability few people have, to 'take a step back' and look at the situation from a different angle...you have my respect!

Cheers

[Abdussamad]

If toasters and fridges start mining bitcoins then what do they need humans for? They can earn their own living and that'll be the start of the end of the human race!

[JorgeStolfi]

Big thread, I actually read it all and the question that just kept coming at me is why don't they (whoever "they" may be) just work a deal with the electricity providers. A asiac chip in every meter. A slight raise in rates across the board will benefit both the mining and the electric companies.

The paying customers accept that some of the power they buy is a good thing. Even though they don't understand decentralization any better than they understand why some places experience brownouts and others never do but they do understand less banking fees and naturally want to get them even if it means another card in their wallet or an app on their phone.

fdyl

Edit: I forgot to mention the rebate that the customers would get each quarter. Each according to their average usage. Win, win, win.

If the mining chips are profitable with normal home electricity prices, then the company will be better off building a mining farm with them in some location where the elecrticity is cheaper.

If the mining chips are not profitable -- meaning that the price of the bitcoins that they mine is less than the price of the electricity that they use -- and their electricty consumption is added to the customer's normal usage, then the customer would take a big loss, while the company and the utility will profit.  

So, any idea that means taking some extra electricity from the customer's feed is a non-stater.  Inserting the chips near the input meter, or at any random place on the home's wiring, would be a bad idea.  Adding the chips to any devices that use electricity to do something other than generate heat --such as battery rechargers, blenders, TVs, computers, microwave ovens, lamps -- will increase the device's consumption, so it is equally bad.

The only devices where the chips could be placed without scamming the consumer are those that resistively convert the electricity to heat.  But chips canot work if they get any hotter than ~70 C; so electric stoves, ovens, grills, teapots, and flatirons are also out.

It seems that only water and space heaters are left.  But someone went through the math, and concluded that the monetary advantage to the customer would be too small to make a difference.

[ebliever]

The only devices where the chips could be placed without scamming the consumer are those that resistively convert the electricity to heat.  But chips canot work if they get any hotter than ~70 C; so electric stoves, ovens, grills, teapots, and flatirons are also out.

My 290X's ran 24/7 for almost a year at 90-92 C, so chips can be designed to go higher. The past ~10 years has seen a major shift to lead-free solder in electronics manufacturing. The unleaded solders typically require a substantially higher soldering temperature, which means the components have to be rated for the higher temperature going through reflow. So if they designed it with heat in mind, I suspect they could take it to 105 C or higher in sustained operation. (105 C being a common test level for certain automotive applications, for example.)

[tyz]

In my eyes it is nothing sensational. I doubt that the venture capital will have any return on investment. It is just not practicable for many people.

[Cryddit]

Honestly electronics can be designed to work at very high temperatures; the problem with that, is that the ways we know how to do it will produce electronics that DON'T work until they reach some approximation of those temperatures.

So, yeah, if you wanted to build chips that operate at 200 degrees celsius you could do it.  But you'd have to get them up to at least boiling temperature before they'd start to work.

[jimmothy]

So The Register writes an article about an article from the Financial Times.

One of the opening lines from the FT is "All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding"

There are no facts, no quotes from anyone from 21 or anyone who has a bleeding clue.

Their guesswork sounds like a pretty dumb idea. It's worth calling it a dumb idea if the people they're guessing about actually confirm it.

The jokester who made up this toaster thing is probably reading this thread and having a laugh.

There is absolutely no way 21 inc raised $116 million based on the idea of putting miners in appliances that people use ~5 minutes per day. No chance in hell.

I can't believe so many people actually believe this is their business plan.

[Shindo1988]

For the article:

The new firm's website lists 18 jobs that it is seeking to fill, ranging from an 'ASIC design engineer' to a business development executive for hardware, offering a glimpse into the startup's plans.

Did anybody consider that they might be trying to create the next generation ASIC?
It would make sense.

[Amph]

For the article:

The new firm's website lists 18 jobs that it is seeking to fill, ranging from an 'ASIC design engineer' to a business development executive for hardware, offering a glimpse into the startup's plans.

Did anybody consider that they might be trying to create the next generation ASIC?
It would make sense.

there is any proof that their asic chips that will go to plant  in our appliances will work with a better technology, let's say at 16nm productive process?

[BTC_Superman]

Hope for the best. Hope, this idea will turn into a good decision.

[RoadStress]

The jokester who made up this toaster thing is probably reading this thread and having a laugh.

There is absolutely no way 21 inc raised $116 million based on the idea of putting miners in appliances that people use ~5 minutes per day. No chance in hell.

I can't believe so many people actually believe this is their business plan.

But what if they put it inside routers for example and for start? Those devices run 24/7 and they always have an internet connection. Something like this could be the real decentralization of mining. If they can have something like 5-10W for bitcoin mining then people wouldn't mind the added cost of electricity. When this will happen I imagine all the big farms offering mining services to big companies for various reasons.

[inBitweTrust]

The jokester who made up this toaster thing is probably reading this thread and having a laugh.

There is absolutely no way 21 inc raised $116 million based on the idea of putting miners in appliances that people use ~5 minutes per day. No chance in hell.

I can't believe so many people actually believe this is their business plan.

But what if they put it inside routers for example and for start? Those devices run 24/7 and they always have an internet connection. Something like this could be the real decentralization of mining. If they can have something like 5-10W for bitcoin mining then people wouldn't mind the added cost of electricity. When this will happen I imagine all the big farms offering mining services to big companies for various reasons.

This is a good point. It isn't just about recycling heat but the added convenience of making mining slightly easier by integrating the unit within a router.... plug and play. From an engineering perspective an ASIC in a router is a horrible idea because it just adds to extra unneeded heat which needs to be properly vented, but engineering isn't the only consideration. If these units were free + 10 S.H. online or 5 dollars a piece retail than they would sell like crazy compared to 50 dollar routers. The danger would be in too many people ordering them as a router backup and not using them however so they would need to keep the potential profitability for the 25% BTC interesting.

Either way, I would have to be honest to the community and tell them the break even and projected ROI depending upon the electrical rates. It could turn out to either be a rent to own deal where the router is free but ends up costing more money over the course of 1 year or it could be a situation where the ASIC router is only wise to use if they live in a location of cheap electrical rates or they have free electricity (renewable energy and/or renters). The people discounting this business plan don't seem to grasp that both these options have a large market demand and will likely be successful as long as 21 can keep manufacturing costs down and the units difficult to hack.

This is really a genius idea.

[RoadStress]

This is a good point. It isn't just about recycling heat but the added convenience of making mining slightly easier by integrating the unit within a router.... plug and play. From an engineering perspective an ASIC in a router is a horrible idea because it just adds to extra unneeded heat which needs to be properly vented, but engineering isn't the only consideration. If these units were free + 10 S.H. online or 5 dollars a piece retail than they would sell like crazy compared to 50 dollar routers. The danger would be in too many people ordering them as a router backup and not using them however so they would need to keep the potential profitability for the 25% BTC interesting.

Either way, I would have to be honest to the community and tell them the break even and projected ROI depending upon the electrical rates. It could turn out to either be a rent to own deal where the router is free but ends up costing more money over the course of 1 year or it could be a situation where the ASIC router is only wise to use if they live in a location of cheap electrical rates or they have free electricity (renewable energy and/or renters). The people discounting this business plan don't seem to grasp that both these options have a large market demand and will likely be successful as long as 21 can keep manufacturing costs down and the units difficult to hack.

This is really a genius idea.

There is no ROI discussion here because the user will not want any ROI for those devices. If they can make it so that the total added cost is minimal (maybe <5$) the user will not care about the added 10W power consumption. That's like 1$/month at 0.10c/kWh. They only need to figure a way to market them and to convince people that their use of the ASIC routers matters. The main question is where all the mining power will go and how do you manage the huge network hashrate that will come.

I also think that these can be fit inside fridges. They already run 24/7 and they have no issue with heating since they can ditch it very easy in the back side. All that's needed is an extra LAN cable to go behind it. Putting them in toasters and such will not work because they aren't being that popular as routers and they aren't being used 24/7. Any other ideas about devices?

[inBitweTrust]

Any other ideas about devices?

So the variables that make it most suitable for commercial success-

1) Added convenience
2) Recycling/Re purposing waste heat
3) Inexpensive Item - that they can give away for free and thus becomes a long term "rental"
4) Always on devices that have access to the internet

Best candidates:

Free Routers - convenience and inexpensive device
Free Coffee/Tea warmers - recycle waste heat and inexpensive device

Good candidates:

Hot water heaters -  recycle waste heat but not sold or replaced often and more expensive
Pool/ spa water heaters -  recycle waste heat but not sold or replaced often and more expensive
Space heaters - recycle waste heat but not as efficient as other heating solutions and only useful to replace portable electric units
subsidized DVR IoT/Media Box - convenience of using internet and connected to TV for control, included HD could be marketed as full node too

So-So candidates:

Fruit/meat dehydrators -  recycle waste heat but more of a specialized or custom item


Anything like toasters, stoves, or cookers are ridiculous ideas as they need to be items that are constantly on to be worthwhile.

[JorgeStolfi]

There is no ROI discussion here because the user will not want any ROI for those devices. If they can make it so that the total added cost is minimal (maybe <5$) the user will not care about the added 10W power consumption. That's like 1$/month at 0.10c/kWh. They only need to figure a way to market them and to convince people that their use of the ASIC routers matters.

I am sure that most users would strongly object to spending 1$/month more for the benefit of some company out there.

Either the devices will be a net win for the users (including the hassle of keeping the device connected and collecting the payoff), or forget it. 

One advantage of an ASIC-enabled toaster (or of the Internet of Things in general) is that the cops will know precisely when you are sitting down for breakfast, on the day they come to get you.

[RoadStress]

There is no ROI discussion here because the user will not want any ROI for those devices. If they can make it so that the total added cost is minimal (maybe <5$) the user will not care about the added 10W power consumption. That's like 1$/month at 0.10c/kWh. They only need to figure a way to market them and to convince people that their use of the ASIC routers matters.

I am sure that most users would strongly object to spending 1$/month more for the benefit of some company out there.

Either the devices will be a net win for the users (including the hassle of keeping the device connected and collecting the payoff), or forget it. 

One advantage of an ASIC-enabled toaster (or of the Internet of Things in general) is that the cops will know precisely when you are sitting down for breakfast, on the day they come to get you.

They aren't spending 1$/month for the benefit of some company. They are doing it for the benefits of the bitcoin p2p network which I know it will not thrill all the users. (unless 21inc chooses to mine directly to their wallets which would be very retarded). They need to find a way to make it worth it for the user to run these devices.

[inBitweTrust]

They aren't spending 1$/month for the benefit of some company. They are doing it for the benefit of the bitcoin p2p network which I know it will not thrill all the users. (unless 21inc chooses to mine directly to their wallets which would be very retarded). They need to find a way to make it worth it for the user to run these devices.

We should be more cynical and not assume 21 business proposal can survive based upon the charity of clients alone.

We shouldn't assume that all humans act rationally in their long term best interest either.

It is still possible that 21 can design an appliance that is profitable for both them and their clients if waste heat is recycled. (although a challenging task to do right)

Lets assume that the above isn't Immediately accomplished and these ASIC appliances aren't wise investments and that free router will cost 100 dollars in electricity over 2 years after 25% mining profits are deducted and a similar router can be purchased for 50USD new.

Who will be their demographic of buyers?

1) Individuals who cannot afford 50 dollars but need a router and can afford 4 dollars a month in electricity
2) Individuals who don't pay for electricity themselves (I.E.. renters/kids) or have already a fixed sunk cost on renewable energy solutions with extra watts to spare
3) Individuals who are concerned about privacy and prefer virgin coins and don't want to spend 8% more on localbitcoins
and waste their time(depends upon if virgin coins will be shared by 21 or not and if you can buy ASIC appliance retail )
4) Bitcoin enthusiasts who want to be "miners" or support the network
5) Idiots who cannot do the math and believe it is a wise investment

Those 5 categories constitute a very large demographic.

[Cryddit]

The jokester who made up this toaster thing is probably reading this thread and having a laugh.

There is absolutely no way 21 inc raised $116 million based on the idea of putting miners in appliances that people use ~5 minutes per day. No chance in hell.

I can't believe so many people actually believe this is their business plan.

Can't rule it out, really, but you are probably right.  Remember what Ron Popiel is rumored to have said when someone suggested design improvements to some angling equipment his company was making.

"Yeah, it would be better for catching fish but that's stupid.  The damn thing isn't supposed to catch fish, it's supposed to catch fishermen."

If you think it's the investors who are being ripped off, then similarly, we could be looking at an investment proposal that isn't supposed to produce a profitable company but is supposed to convince investors that it might.

But I happen to think it's the consumers who are being ripped off, and this is -- also similar -- a proposal for a (probably profitable) company which produces devices which are not supposed to make a profit but are supposed to convince consumers that they might. 

[inBitweTrust]

But I happen to think it's the consumers who are being ripped off, and this is -- also similar -- a proposal for a (probably profitable) company which produces devices which are not supposed to make a profit but are supposed to convince consumers that they might. 

Likely possibility as producing a free device that is profitable for both will be a challenge although not impossible. This is akin to all mining in bitcoin where unless you have free electricity, are lucky, or invest over a million you won't turn a greater profit vs just holding onto your BTC. Yet people still buy ASIC's or into cloudmining ponzis over and over.

I suppose the side benefit is they may improve bitcoin security... Regardless of this, I won't allow companies to lie or mislead their customers without a fight so 21 better come prepared. Many of us were prepared and warned others about cloudmining ponzis or scam coins so 21 better get ready for a healthy dose of skepticism and pushback if they don't release a decent product.

[RoadStress]

We should be more cynical and not assume 21 business proposal can survive based upon the charity of clients alone.

We shouldn't assume that all humans act rationally in their long term best interest either.

It is still possible that 21 can design an appliance that is profitable for both them and their clients if waste heat is recycled. (although a challenging task to do right)

Lets assume that the above isn't Immediately accomplished and these ASIC appliances aren't wise investments and that free router will cost 100 dollars in electricity over 2 years after 25% mining profits are deducted and a similar router can be purchased for 50USD new.

Who will be their demographic of buyers?

1) Individuals who cannot afford 50 dollars but need a router and can afford 4 dollars a month in electricity
2) Individuals who don't pay for electricity themselves (I.E.. renters/kids) or have already a fixed sunk cost on renewable energy solutions with extra watts to spare
3) Individuals who are concerned about privacy and prefer virgin coins and don't want to spend 8% more on localbitcoins
and waste their time(depends upon if virgin coins will be shared by 21 or not and if you can buy ASIC appliance retail )
4) Bitcoin enthusiasts who want to be "miners" or support the network
5) Idiots who cannot do the math and believe it is a wise investment

Those 5 categories constitute a very large demographic.

Who said anything abut the charity of the clients? There are various way where they can get their money. They can have a deal with TP-LINK for example to integrate the chips into their routers and TP-LINK pays them to do it.

Recycling heat in a consumer appliance seems too complicated. They need to keep it simple for start then move on to complex stuff.

Stop talking about poor piss people. They will pay for that router with the added benefit that they support a p2p payment network that fucks the banks in the ass. Remember that the router will have an energy cost no matter if it has bitcoin mining ASIC chips or not. Who gets a router already knows that he will pay for some power and as stated before for a 10W extra the consumer will pay 32$/year extra in terms of electricity. Nobody checks the power requirements of the routers so I am sure that most will not even notice an added 10W.

Nobody will buy such a router for the mining profits. They will buy if because it is at a discounted price or in a promotion or because they just want to support a free p2p payment network. No need to complicate things.

[Cryddit]

On the other hand, in contexts where the heat produced *IS* the point of the appliance, there is at least a possibility that by using electricity that the consumer would be buying anyway (and using to produce heat) the devices could be profitable. In terms of marginal cost that really is free power.

This gets back to the guy in Minnesota who replaced his electric house heating system with S3's.  Not the most efficient miner any more, but when the thermostat kicks it on, it still makes him more profit than his old electric heater ever did and produces the same amount of heat for the same amount of electricity consumed.

[mercistheman]

All it takes is an over sized breaker at the panel and an extra load on the circuit and you would be looking at potential house fires.

[inBitweTrust]

Remember that the router will have an energy cost no matter if it has bitcoin mining ASIC chips or not. Who gets a router already knows that he will pay for some power and as stated before for a 10W extra the consumer will pay 32$/year extra in terms of electricity. Nobody checks the power requirements of the routers so I am sure that most will not even notice an added 10W.

Pardon for my brashness but you seem to be making a few assumptions without calculating the profitability.

An efficient ASIC has a Power Efficiency of ~ 0.51 J/GH. Thus you are suggesting that these routers will be producing ~ 5GH for 10W. A router will use around ~6watts  and you are suggesting adding another 10 to that with the ASIC .

0.07 kWh = Immediate loss of 0.0289 USD a week.
0.16 kWh =  Immediate loss of 0.1801 USD a week
Free Electricity = Total gross profit of 5.48 USD after 3.3 years = 1.37 usd in btc issued to consumer in 3.3 years and 4.11 USD in 3.3 years  going to 21 inc (assuming extremely conservative difficulty increase of 3% month)

So no... it will not just be a paltry 10w  ... as no one in their right mind will offer a discounted router for 4 dollars over 3.3 years in potential gross profit. This means in order for them to have a chance of profiting with free electricity these routers will be probably using at least 200-500 watts ... they will be little mini space heaters essentially that will have a noticeable impact upon ones electrical bill of between 10 dollars(200w @ 0.07 kWh) to 58 dollars (500w @ 0.16 kWh) more a month.

[RoadStress]

Pardon for my brashness but you seem to be making a few assumptions without calculating the profitability.

An efficient ASIC has a Power Efficiency of ~ 0.51 J/GH. Thus you are suggesting that these routers will be producing ~ 5GH for 10W. A router will use around ~6watts  and you are suggesting adding another 10 to that with the ASIC .

0.07 kWh = Immediate loss of 0.0289 USD a week.
0.16 kWh =  Immediate loss of 0.1801 USD a week
Free Electricity = Total gross profit of 5.48 USD after 3.3 years = 1.37 usd in btc issued to consumer in 3.3 years and 4.11 USD in 3.3 years  going to 21 inc (assuming extremely conservative difficulty increase of 3% month)

So no... it will not just be a paltry 10w  ... as no one in their right mind will offer a discounted router for 4 dollars over 3.3 years in potential gross profit. This means in order for them to have a chance of profiting with free electricity these routers will be probably using at least 200-500 watts ... they will be little mini space heaters essentially that will have a noticeable impact upon ones electrical bill of between 10 dollars(200w @ 0.07 kWh) to 58 dollars (500w @ 0.16 kWh) more a month.

I'm starting to feel that we have different visions about this and we are getting nowhere with this discussion.

Don't compare current ASICs with what 21inc is trying to do. They are totally different things. They plan to have a 14nm/16nm chip. Here you can see an estimate closer to reality: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053412.msg11324501#msg11324501 While I remain conservative about that power consumption I do believe that Qualcom knows a thing or two about low powered chips. If KnC (a company that exists since 2013) announced 0.07W/GH then Qualcom must do better considering their experience.

I don't understand why are you making ROI calculations. I find that 10W extra per month will not bother anyone. I keep my router plugged 24/7 and it produces nothing. Why should that change if it had a bitcoin mining chip in it? Do you keep the router online all the time? The extra added cost is less than 1 coffee/1 coke bottle/etc. It's 1 dollar per month. It's nothing!

Why do you suddenly expect a ROI from something that was never supposed to bring any ROI?

[inBitweTrust]

Why do you suddenly expect a ROI from something that was never supposed to bring any ROI?

My comments indicate the need for a ROI only from the perspective of the investors and owners of 21 Inc and the consumers making the miscalculation. I am thus making the assumption most users will make the irrational decision and mine btc on these units even though they will never see a ROI just like they are doing so now with other forms of mining.

Don't compare current ASICs with what 21inc is trying to do. They are totally different things. They plan to have a 14nm/16nm chip. Here you can see an estimate closer to reality: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053412.msg11324501#msg11324501 While I remain conservative about that power consumption I do believe that Qualcom knows a thing or two about low powered chips. If KnC (a company that exists since 2013) announced 0.07W/GH then Qualcom must do better considering their experience.

I'm using real life numbers instead of speculating for a reason. The reason is because with PoW improvements in efficiency only leads to short term profits as difficulty re-adjusts. Thus if I speculate with you and assume that 0.07W/GH can be realized than those efficiency gains will be quickly lost by a change in difficulty. You have to keep in mind that those coffee warmers and ASIC routers will be competing with 14nm chips in industrial ASICs in a warehouse where power and ventilation is cheap and plentiful. There are multiple ASIC companies in this space all competing for more efficient chips and 21 doesn't exist in a vacuum. So sure , we can assume 10w @ 200  GH/s... heck , lets lets fantasize of 5w @ 400 GH/s.... you do understand that the ROI is largely dependent upon the total share of the hashing power and not the amount of  GH/s? With those new chips that router will need a much higher GH/s to get a decent share of the block reward and tx fees . Thus in order to get an appropriate hashing share that router will need to be an energy hog to make any business sense from 21 eyes.  

Don't get me wrong, I want this to happen and hope 21 is successful. I am just not going to let them do it by misleading their customers. I would rather motivate them to produce a product which was genuinely innovative by reusing waste heat and thus benefited everyone.

[RoadStress]

My comments indicate the need for a ROI only from the perspective of the investors and owners of 21 Inc and the consumers making the miscalculation. I am thus making the assumption most users will make the irrational decision and mine btc on these units even though they will never see a ROI just like they are doing so now with other forms of mining.

Now you totally lost me. In your previous post you are showing some ROI calculations from the consumer perspective. Now you are talking about 21 Inc perspective. Make up your mind or at least separate them more visible. Let's make it easy.

Consumer ROI: From my perspective this doesn't exist because this shouldn't be the main reason of buying 21 Inc products. I see it just like a device that uses more power. Period. Because if TP-LINK suddenly has an increase of 5W power consumption nobody would notice. As I said before nobody is buying a router (or any alike equipment) based on its power consumption. Also anyone that has enough money to buy a router and to keep it 24/7 plugged in can very easily support an added cost of 1$/month (a maximum approximate) because this also implies that they can also pay for an internet subscription and for a device that can surf on the internet. A 1$/month for this type of consumer isn't noticeable.

Company ROI: There are various methods of them getting ROI. The profit from selling these types of devices must be the last method of them doing that. You need to be creative. They can sell the company to someone else, they can deploy hashpower before selling consumer devices, they can have some patents and B2B partnerships etc.

I'm using real life numbers instead of speculating for a reason. The reason is because with PoW improvements in efficiency only leads to short term profits as difficulty re-adjusts. Thus if I speculate with you and assume that 0.07W/GH can be realized than those efficiency gains will be quickly lost by a change in difficulty. You have to keep in mind that those coffee warmers and ASIC routers will be competing with 14nm chips in industrial ASICs in a warehouse where power and ventilation is cheap and plentiful. There are multiple ASIC companies in this space all competing for more efficient chips and 21 doesn't exist in a vacuum. So sure , we can assume 10w @ 200  GH/s... heck , lets lets fantasize of 5w @ 400 GH/s.... you do understand that the ROI is largely dependent upon the total share of the hashing power and not the amount of  GH/s? With those new chips that router will need a much higher GH/s to get a decent share of the block reward and tx fees . Thus in order to get an appropriate hashing share that router will need to be an energy hog to make any business sense from 21 eyes. 

Don't get me wrong, I want this to happen and hope 21 is successful. I am just not going to let them do it be misleading their customers. I would rather motivate them to produce a product which was genuinely innovative by reusing waste heat and thus benefited everyone.

You are using real life numbers from chips with a bigger node than what 21 Inc plans. So from start you have the wrong data to start the comparison.

Excuse me? ASIC routers will be competing with industrial ASICs? Read this post again please: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053412.msg11324501#msg11324501 We are talking about 50 Eh/s. I will let you explain how can someone deploy more than 1Eh/s industrially in a warehouse because it is your statement.

Again you are talking about a ROI for a router. That doesn't exist. It is explained above. You simply don't understand or you refuse to accept it.

[inBitweTrust]

You are using real life numbers from chips with a bigger node than what 21 Inc plans. So from start you have the wrong data to start the comparison.

Excuse me? ASIC routers will be competing with industrial ASICs? Read this post again please: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053412.msg11324501#msg11324501 We are talking about 50 Eh/s. I will let you explain how can someone deploy more than 1Eh/s industrially in a warehouse because it is your statement.

Again you are talking about a ROI for a router. That doesn't exist. It is explained above. You simply don't understand or you refuse to accept it.

Ok, I stand corrected and understand what you are suggesting. Thank you for schooling me.  

I'm beginning to understand your and s1gs3gv arguments to indicate that if 21 can secure a license contract with a major manufacturer and immediately sell at scale routers with embedded ASIC chips in the board that uses an extra 10w and produce  200GH/s each for a very nominal cost of raising the router unit price up a couple dollars it could work .  The reason that this would succeed and why Commercial ASICs would fail is because adding an ASIC chip within a router is much easier and cheaper than building a standalone Commercial ASIC unit and thus they could pass those savings onto the consumers. Additionally, the whole mining setup, maintenance, troubleshooting ,security, liability, and power concerns would be eliminated thus further adding efficiencies that commercial miners couldn't compete with. 21 would only need to make 1-3 dollars per router to be profitable because the costs are so small.

This is all based upon the assumption that 21 has already or can secure a royalty or license contract with a major manufacturer and start deploying 100ks to millions of these products.  

If I were a ASIC manufacturer not contracted with 21 I would immediately start trying to secure my own royalty deals.  If I was a ASIC miner working out of a hot warehouse I would be horrified and immediately start preparing for a transition.

I myself hope that enough ASIC manufactures secure enough of these deals with independent manufacturers (I.E... Cisco/Lynksys with 21/ , GE with Antminer, TPlink with spondoolies, ect... so there isn't one large 21 Inc pool controlling the hashrate.

[LiteCoinGuy]

my toaster should be a full node too please 

[inBitweTrust]

my toaster should be a full node too please 

...as long as it can have its own wallet as a DAC/DAO and spend its own BTC mined from its own ASIC chip to order and buy its own bread to make me toast in the morning first. 

[JorgeStolfi]

I don't understand why are you making ROI calculations. I find that 10W extra per month will not bother anyone. I keep my router plugged 24/7 and it produces nothing. Why should that change if it had a bitcoin mining chip in it? Do you keep the router online all the time? The extra added cost is less than 1 coffee/1 coke bottle/etc. It's 1 dollar per month. It's nothing!

Why do you suddenly expect a ROI from something that was never supposed to bring any ROI?

Because the issue is not you wasting 10 W; it is someone else using 10 W of your power to his benefit.

Would you not mind if your neighbor pulled a cable from your home to feed his front porch light, even if it was just 10W -- for no other reason that he does not want to pay for those 10W?  If he did that without you being aware of it?

"You need a router? Well, we have this router A that costs $43 and consumes 15 W, and this other one B that does exactly the same thing but costs $51 and consumes 25 W; the difference being that B also does a certain computation for some company that does not want to pay for those 10W itself, and thinks that you will not mind paying for it.  If you buy B, you can fill a form at their site and every month they will mail you a check for 23 cents. You may opt to get that in bitcoin instead."

[JorgeStolfi]

I'm beginning to understand your and s1gs3gv arguments to indicate that if 21 can secure a license contract with a major manufacturer and immediately sell at scale routers with embedded ASIC chips in the board that uses an extra 10w and produce  200GH/s each for a very nominal cost of raising the router unit price up a couple dollars it could work .  The reason that this would succeed and why Commercial ASICs would fail is because adding an ASIC chip within a router is much easier and cheaper than building a standalone Commercial ASIC unit and thus they could pass those savings onto the consumers. Additionally, the whole mining setup, maintenance, troubleshooting , liability, and power concerns would be eliminated thus further adding efficiencies that commercial miners couldn't compete with. 21 would only need to make 1-3 dollars per router to be profitable because the costs are so small.

Even so... a standalone mining rig would use dozens or hundreds of those ASICS and consume hundreds of watts, 24/7.  If you divide those "extra costs" of the rig (cabinet, PSU, maintenace, etc.) by its hashpower, the rig would probably still be more cost-effective than "parasitic" ASICs in other consumer equipment.

I still cannot see how this hypothetical plan can make economic sense.  They may be into mining, but I suspect that appliance-embedded chips is not their plan.

[nakaone]

please let this stuff not be the idea that raised 116 million bucks.

there is a post here from prophetx who explains why vc until now failed to monetize bitcoin - if this stuff raises 116 million, the ideas you can derive from that post will probably be worth much more.

[inBitweTrust]

Even so... a standalone mining rig would use dozens or hundreds of those ASICS and consume hundreds of watts, 24/7.  If you divide those "extra costs" of the rig (cabinet, PSU, maintenace, etc.) by its hashpower, the rig would probably still be more cost-effective than "parasitic" ASICs in other consumer equipment.

I still cannot see how this hypothetical plan can make economic sense.  They may be into mining, but I suspect that appliance-embedded chips is not their plan.

Dividing many chips with a commercial miner with the enclosure/PSU/control board can certainly lower costs but not as low as adding a 10w ASIC chip to a router where it can piggy back off of those items(this must be balanced right as an extra 10w and the extra heat could raise the costs of the router itself with a more powerful transformer and better cooling).

This isn't where the true efficiency gains are realized though. You completely ignored the most important part of gains in efficiency.

Additionally, the whole mining setup, maintenance, troubleshooting, security , liability, and power concerns would be eliminated thus further adding efficiencies that commercial miners couldn't compete with.

Those all amount to sizable costs mostly eliminated by distributing the hashing power to millions of routers and appliances.

Because the issue is not you wasting 10 W; it is someone else using 10 W of your power to his benefit.

I think we mostly agree that using an ASIC for anything but recycling waste heat has a net negative investment from the consumers standpoint compared to them spending those funds directly on bitcoin rather than electricity to mine bitcoin.

The consumer might get a free router (valued at 40 usd), spend twice as much on electricity or an extra 100 USD over 3 years and their 25% share mined would amount to 20-30 dollars of BTC for a net investment loss. This doesn't take into account the value a fairer "rent to own" contract than is currently being offered and doesn't take into account hobbyists that want to support the network, and doesn't take into account the fact that the BTC mined will likely go up in value thus the free router will be profitable for the consumer as long as they don't immediately spend their mined bitcoins.

The bottom line is yes, from an investment perspective it is better to immediately buy bitcoin and a buy a regular router rather than rent to own this one.....but it could definitely become a better investment than buying a regular router and not buying BTC. Thus those regular consumers could still be making a better decision by using this free router than buying a regular one, they just won't be making the best decision.

I would prefer Appliances that used waste heat as there are some real benefits for everyone to be realized there.

[inBitweTrust]

We should be honest with ourselves and our non-bitcoin peers and openly discuss the numbers when these products begin to be released even if it means that we need to speak negatively about a bitcoin company and tarnish its reputation and miss a valuable opportunity to bring in new users. I don't want to adopt or bring in new bitcoin users by marketing gimmicks or false hopes.

[JorgeStolfi]

Well, it seems that their plan is indeed to insert ASIC mining chips into appliances and steal use free electricity from the consumers:

http://www.coinspeaker.com/2015/05/10/startup-21-inc-wants-to-put-bitcoin-miner-in-toaster-9190/

(Unless the author of that article tooks that "fact" from this forum...)

In another forum, someone mentioned the CueCat story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

I still don't understand why they would use such a complicated method to take money from gullible bitcoiners, instead of the simplest method that I devised about a year ago:



[ The image may appear truncated due to a forum bug. Click on the image for the full-size version ]

[inBitweTrust]

Well, it seems that their plan is indeed to insert ASIC mining chips into appliances and steal use free electricity from the consumers:

I still don't understand why they would use such a complicated method to take money from gullible bitcoiners, instead of the simplest method that I devised about a year ago:

Jumping the gun a bit?

It isn't stealing if there is no dishonesty or false claims being made. There are many of us on this forum who have been critical of both bitcoin, bitcoin mining businesses and alt businesses when we suspect even slightly misleading marketing.

I look forward to discussing both the positives and negatives of their yet to be released products.  Any dishonesty will be viciously attacked... but what you are doing now is either trolling or potentially falsely misrepresenting them without enough data to make those claims.

Interesting list of Jobs they are looking for giving credence to these journalists' articles:

https://21.co/#jobs

[JorgeStolfi]

It isn't stealing if there is no dishonesty or false claims being made.

Hey, the method I proposed does not use dishonesty or false claims either!  

[JorgeStolfi]

Interesting list of Jobs they are looking for giving credence to these journalists' articles:

https://21.co/#jobs

Interesting indeed, but I don't see anything that suggests appliances.  It may have something to do with mobile access (Android and iOS), though. 

Cound it be something related to payments instead of mining -- like NFC receivers for points-of-sale and/or smartphones? Or a hardware wallet that interact with your smartphone?

[inBitweTrust]

It isn't stealing if there is no dishonesty or false claims being made.

Hey, the method I proposed does not use dishonesty or false claims either!  

I liked the cartoon... but cannot follow through with sending the bitcoins to you. Replace your Signature with a BTC donation address so I can follow your suggestion proposed in your comic.  

p.s.. I appreciate the honesty of your sig.

Interesting list of Jobs they are looking for giving credence to these journalists' articles:

https://21.co/#jobs

Interesting indeed, but I don't see anything that suggests appliances.  It may have something to do with mobile access (Android and iOS), though.  

Cound it be something related to payments instead of mining -- like NFC receivers for points-of-sale and/or smartphones? Or a hardware wallet that interact with your smartphone?

No ... looks like those mobile apps are to control the ASIC appliances as they will be IoT enabled smart appliances.

https://jobs.lever.co/21/98cf0d53-ff78-42c0-a3af-882309d9f198

21 is looking for an exceptional hardware engineer with demonstrable experience in designing ASICs that have been shipped at scale and expert knowledge of industry-standard design tools. You'll work with both internal technical teams and external customers on integrating our technology into novel Bitcoin-related products.

If it was another hardware Wallet (Already plenty of those and unlikely to attract so much VC capital so quickly) than the job specification wouldn't indicate integrating Internal ASIC technology in with multiple products and working with external partners.

[bitcoin_bagholder]

Is there any proof that any of this is true? I can't find a shred of it.

Same here, been on a hunt for a confirmation or denial from 21 Inc or for these "knowledgeable sources" to be named. Nada.

I sure am skeptical with toaster in the title. A fuckin' toaster? Mine averages about a minute of future bitcoin mining per day.

[inBitweTrust]

http://www.ibtimes.com/21-inc-secret-bitcoin-startup-raises-116m-latest-funding-round-1842374
http://www.coindesk.com/21-record-116-million-funding-all-star-investors/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334759.0

Secretive startup 21E6, another mining-machine seller, is believed to be backed by some of the wealthiest people in Silicon Valley; its co-founder is Balaji Srinivasan, a former Stanford University professor and data-mining expert.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6

$116M / Venture
Mar 10, 2015
Investors:
Peter Thiel
Qualcomm Ventures
Data Collective
Khosla Ventures
Yuan Capital
RRE Ventures
Andreessen Horowitz

$5.1M / Series A
Nov 17, 2013
Investors:
Winklevoss Capital

That Qualcomm investment is what sticks out.

[jimmothy]

21 is looking for an exceptional hardware engineer with demonstrable experience in designing ASICs that have been shipped at scale and expert knowledge of industry-standard design tools. You'll work with both internal technical teams and external customers on integrating our technology into novel Bitcoin-related products.

If it was another hardware Wallet (Already plenty of those and unlikely to attract so much VC capital so quickly) than the job specification wouldn't indicate integrating Internal ASIC technology in with multiple products and working with external partners.

It's safe to assume that they are working on a mining chip because of this: "Working with cutting-edge process technologies (sub-32 nm)"

There's no reason to use the cutting edge process tech for anything that is not used all the time.

As for the statement you quoted, I don't think that's evidence that they are integrating their ASIC's in appliances. I think it's more likely that the "bitcoin-related products" are just miners and the "external customers" are chip integrators. (building their own farms using 21 inc chips)

[ed_teech]

http://www.ibtimes.com/21-inc-secret-bitcoin-startup-raises-116m-latest-funding-round-1842374
http://www.coindesk.com/21-record-116-million-funding-all-star-investors/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334759.0

Secretive startup 21E6, another mining-machine seller, is believed to be backed by some of the wealthiest people in Silicon Valley; its co-founder is Balaji Srinivasan, a former Stanford University professor and data-mining expert.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6

$116M / Venture
Mar 10, 2015
Investors:
Peter Thiel
Qualcomm Ventures
Data Collective
Khosla Ventures
Yuan Capital
RRE Ventures
Andreessen Horowitz

$5.1M / Series A
Nov 17, 2013
Investors:
Winklevoss Capital

That Qualcomm investment is what sticks out.

This is quite interesting. Has Qualcomm ever showed any interest in building miners or even Bitcoin ? Is it their first investment ? I always thought ASIC manufacturing is just for mid-size hardware factories.

[Cryddit]

Hm.  There is a place to go with this now that I think about it, but it's a little weird.

With current process technology, if you are willing to design for half the speed, you can do it for a quarter of the power.  And if you're willing to go a quarter of the speed, you can do it for one-sixteenth of the power, and so on.

It sounds like if 21 wants to integrate small-scale mining into a host of consumer products, they're going to need tiny mining rigs that run on just a watt or two - but those rigs, although much slower, could be drastically more *efficient* in hashes produced per power consumed than what's filling up server farms today.

If you take a 200w mining chip and then design for slower speed - half speed is 50w, quarter speed is 12.5w, 1/8 speed is 3.25 watts.  The payoff would be very slow, but positive relative to the hashes/power tradeoff that miners are doing now.  A fair number of the things we have in our homes consume 3.25 watts just in standby currents to keep a little LED on and a little timer running and their program memory refreshed, etc... 

Of course, equilibrium will be reached; whether the market is saturated by 21 inc's devices or whether miners replace their current infrastructure with similarly slow/cool chips, ROI on the more efficient devices will approach zero just as surely as it already has for USB sticks.

[RoadStress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be Bingo!

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be Bingo!

Now that looks like a lead. Interesting.

[SebastianJu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be Bingo!

Now that looks like a lead. Interesting.

Does they speak about bitcoin too or only about a technique already widely used by big ISPs? I mean that normal persons allow other persons of the same ISP using their WLAN. So that the customers can have net outside often enough too.

Im not a native english speaker so i might have missed something.

[LiteCoinGuy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be Bingo!

Now that looks like a lead. Interesting.

Does they speak about bitcoin too or only about a technique already widely used by big ISPs? I mean that normal persons allow other persons of the same ISP using their WLAN. So that the customers can have net outside often enough too.

Im not a native english speaker so i might have missed something.

they are not talking about bitcoin in this video. but it makes sense to see that video in that context.

[SebastianJu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be Bingo!

Now that looks like a lead. Interesting.

Does they speak about bitcoin too or only about a technique already widely used by big ISPs? I mean that normal persons allow other persons of the same ISP using their WLAN. So that the customers can have net outside often enough too.

Im not a native english speaker so i might have missed something.

they are not talking about bitcoin in this video. but it makes sense to see that video in that context.
[/quote

How? I dont get it yet. Is there a business model that could be worth it for bitcoin? If you mean those stations being miners then i think that specialized miners still will have an advantage in price. So i dont see why this might be related.

[inBitweTrust]

How? I dont get it yet. Is there a business model that could be worth it for bitcoin? If you mean those stations being miners then i think that specialized miners still will have an advantage in price. So i dont see why this might be related.

We know that Qualcomm invested in 21 Inc. We also know that they are interested in and are developing millions of micro-stations to boost their network coverage and bandwidth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be

The question is who is going to buy their micro stations or pay the electricity and why would they? It would be ridiculous for them to require one for their devices.

Thus one can speculate that they may be interested in having 21 deploy millions of ASIC appliances for free where 2 extra chips are embedded one for mining BTC thus affording 21 to give away the appliances and the other own being a microstation for qualcomm where qualcomm subsidizes the price in exchange for cheaper bandwidth.

[jimmothy]

How? I dont get it yet. Is there a business model that could be worth it for bitcoin? If you mean those stations being miners then i think that specialized miners still will have an advantage in price. So i dont see why this might be related.

We know that Qualcomm invested in 21 Inc. We also know that they are interested in and are developing millions of micro-stations to boost their network coverage and bandwidth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be

The question is who is going to buy their micro stations or pay the electricity and why would they? It would be ridiculous for them to require one for their devices.

Thus one can speculate that they may be interested in having 21 deploy millions of ASIC appliances for free where 2 extra chips are embedded one for mining BTC thus affording 21 to give away the appliances and the other own being a microstation for qualcomm where qualcomm subsidizes the price in exchange for cheaper bandwidth.

IMO a better solution would be letting people buy those devices and offering cell service to anyone who pays btc.

[Cryddit]

What really stuns me about these devices is the security implications. 

You realize we're talking about a box controlled by someone else, with its own network access and sensors and probably also attached to your own home network, sitting inside your home? 

Hello? 

Does this sound like a Bad Idea to anyone else?

These chips are an absolute plum of a target for anybody who wants to do REALLY invasive snooping. And I would guarantee that those capabilities will be baked in; it is simply too profitable for these guys to not do. 

[futureofbitcoin]

What really stuns me about these devices is the security implications. 

You realize we're talking about a box controlled by someone else, with its own network access and sensors and probably also attached to your own home network, sitting inside your home? 

Hello? 

Does this sound like a Bad Idea to anyone else?

These chips are an absolute plum of a target for anybody who wants to do REALLY invasive snooping. And I would guarantee that those capabilities will be baked in; it is simply too profitable for these guys to not do. 

If you're worried, don't use the product. It's really that simple. For those who think the benefit outweighs the potential cons, they'll use it. That's all.

[TheRealSteve]

An article that's not based on the Alphaville piece, painting a rather different picture: Inside 21's Plans to Bring Bitcoin to the Masses

[gentlemand]

An article that's not based on the Alphaville piece, painting a rather different picture: Inside 21's Plans to Bring Bitcoin to the Masses

That's a bit more like it.

This sentence in particular stood out for me - "By the time its chips were to be embedded into Internet of Things (IoT) devices, 21 projected its cost to produce 1 BTC could be as low as $7.45."

I wonder what their projections are as the block reward dwindles towards a trickle in the years to come.

[futureofbitcoin]

An article that's not based on the Alphaville piece, painting a rather different picture: Inside 21's Plans to Bring Bitcoin to the Masses

Wow, Okay. I changed my mind. If this really is what they're planning, this is NOT good for the general public. It would totally suck.

[SebastianJu]

How? I dont get it yet. Is there a business model that could be worth it for bitcoin? If you mean those stations being miners then i think that specialized miners still will have an advantage in price. So i dont see why this might be related.

We know that Qualcomm invested in 21 Inc. We also know that they are interested in and are developing millions of micro-stations to boost their network coverage and bandwidth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p2suMVsKow&feature=youtu.be

The question is who is going to buy their micro stations or pay the electricity and why would they? It would be ridiculous for them to require one for their devices.

Thus one can speculate that they may be interested in having 21 deploy millions of ASIC appliances for free where 2 extra chips are embedded one for mining BTC thus affording 21 to give away the appliances and the other own being a microstation for qualcomm where qualcomm subsidizes the price in exchange for cheaper bandwidth.

Interesting since WLAN and co are normally enabled all the time. But still economically probably not viable.

I really would like to know their idea. Either they have a really good idea we did not think about, they lied about the investment funds they received or they dealt with persons that dont know bitcoin.

[Daedelus]

So the chips will use energy additional to a normal device or are they designed to work within the "energy footprint" of existing devices i.e. no net energy increase?

The latter doesn't seem likely.

[SebastianJu]

So the chips will use energy additional to a normal device or are they designed to work within the "energy footprint" of existing devices i.e. no net energy increase?

The latter doesn't seem likely.

It probably wouldnt make it worth creating the asics and the pcb needed for it.

Or will a really massive production be able to bring production costs down so far?

[Alley]

Sounds like I'll be giving toasters to my whole family for Xmas and all the coins will be mine!  Muabahahahahah

[Daedelus]

Sounds like I'll be giving toasters to my whole family for Xmas and all the coins will be mine!  Muabahahahahah

And this toaster scenario would be the equivalent to having the grille of your oven on 24/7, and you just put bread under when you want toast?

There is always the idea of value added form other things but the Blockparty social media, they state you can view your friends purchase histories. Seems odd, why would anyone take part under these conditions. How would a bank fare if it released an account where all your friends could review your purchase history? 

This idea seems very naive to me. But for the millions they've raised, they must have something up their sleeves.

[SebastianJu]

You saw this? http://www.coindesk.com/21-intel-bitcoin-mining-strategy/

I didnt find it in this thread...

[TheRealSteve]

I didnt find it in this thread...

It's 8 posts up

Do keep in mind that that article is based on an older document - but it's a wee bit more realistic than Alphaville's conjecture.

[GenTarkin]

In regards to intel possibly making mining ASIC's.....
Did anyone else notice that the new "Skylake" x86 uarch has an instruction set extension specifically for SHA1 & SHA2(256)
I think thats quite interesting....

[TheRealSteve]

In regards to intel possibly making mining ASIC's.....
Did anyone else notice that the new "Skylake" x86 uarch has an instruction set extension specifically for SHA1 & SHA2(256)
I think thats quite interesting....

quite interesting, but ultimately not so much for cryptocurrency mining;
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/36253/what-mining-performance-can-we-roughly-expect-from-the-intel-sha-extensions-of-t

Slightly more useful for hashing large sets of data and/or bitesized data where you do actually need the hashed output (remember, ASICs don't return the hash)

[GenTarkin]

In regards to intel possibly making mining ASIC's.....
Did anyone else notice that the new "Skylake" x86 uarch has an instruction set extension specifically for SHA1 & SHA2(256)
I think thats quite interesting....

quite interesting, but ultimately not so much for cryptocurrency mining;
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/36253/what-mining-performance-can-we-roughly-expect-from-the-intel-sha-extensions-of-t

Slightly more useful for hashing large sets of data and/or bitesized data where you do actually need the hashed output (remember, ASICs don't return the hash)

Well, its not so much a point of mining w/ the CPU ... but the fact they made part of a circuit dedicated to SHA hashing ... easily translates into making an ASIC w/ just a huge array of these little circuits, much like how modern ASICs stemmed from previously designed hardware hashing circuit designs and someone was just like ... "well put a shit load of these little things in parallel, drive up the clock speed and ya have a decent mining ASIC"  ... AFAIK

[Bit_Happy]

116 million in venture capital, wow this project has cash to spend and people talking up a big buzz.
Let's hope they can do something worthwhile with this unique opportunity.

[TheRealSteve]

the fact they made part of a circuit dedicated to SHA hashing ... easily translates into making an ASIC w/ just a huge array of these little circuits, much like how modern ASICs stemmed from previously designed hardware hashing circuit designs and someone was just like ... "well put a shit load of these little things in parallel, drive up the clock speed and ya have a decent mining ASIC"  ... AFAIK

It would be easier for them to have developed a Bitcoin mining ASIC directly - integrating the required gates for two stages into a CPU design is a somewhat more difficult task, and yanking them out of that design and then into an efficient dedicated chip that performs the hashing rounds required for mining doesn't make much sense - if that were a goal.  But sure, Intel + dedicated hashing instruction = squee.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Can someone bring me up to speed on this 21 inc? I have apparently missed everything about it.

[TheRealSteve]

Can someone bring me up to speed on this 21 inc? I have apparently missed everything about it.

21 Inc, formerly 21e6, was a secretive hardware/mining op that more recently has gone slightly more public mostly announcing getting a bunch of funds for 'something'.  Nobody except 21, investors, and a few other people (including on this forum) knows what that 'something' would be, but that won't stop people from speculating about miner-toasters
That's the tl;dr - set aside an hour or so of reading for details.

[futureofbitcoin]

And it seems like they're only giving their blood sucking chips for free to manufacturers of products, so consumers don't actually get any discount off the item; they simply don't have to pay extra to serve 21 inc and give them free money.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Can someone bring me up to speed on this 21 inc? I have apparently missed everything about it.

http://www.ibtimes.com/21-inc-secret-bitcoin-startup-raises-116m-latest-funding-round-1842374

http://www.coindesk.com/21-record-116-million-funding-all-star-investors/

[Amph]

In regards to intel possibly making mining ASIC's.....
Did anyone else notice that the new "Skylake" x86 uarch has an instruction set extension specifically for SHA1 & SHA2(256)
I think thats quite interesting....

those asic will be able to compete with current generation? i could see them great in efficiency, because they will be based on the future architetture with better nm

[TheRealSteve]

For the curious, the 21 Inc website has been updated:

We've developed a chip for embedded bitcoin mining.
Sign up below to request a dev kit.\

Used to be "21 million bitcoins, infinite possibilities / The future of money belongs to those who show up."

[Denker]

https://medium.com/@21dotco/a-bitcoin-miner-in-every-device-and-in-every-hand-e315b40f2821

[JorgeStolfi]

https://medium.com/@21dotco/a-bitcoin-miner-in-every-device-and-in-every-hand-e315b40f2821

Are there any numbers?  Like, "We expect to produce and deploy N zillion chips in the next 5 years, which will increase the total world's hashpower to P mongohashes per second, so that your toaster will mine K thousand BTC every morning, unless you would rather have light toast."

[cryptonikus]

How can I obtaine shares of 21 inc ? thank you

[jimmothy]

How can I obtaine shares of 21 inc ? thank you

Unfortunately you can't, but there is an alternative that will yield similar results.

Just make sure your money is in cash form, find the nearest toilet, insert money, and flush.

[RoadStress]

How can I obtaine shares of 21 inc ? thank you

Unfortunately you can't, but there is an alternative that will yield similar results.

Just make sure your money is in cash form, find the nearest toilet, insert money, and flush.

This is not a bitcoin IPO so please don't compare it to one

[Denker]

Please listen to it if you can. What do you think about it?

https://soundcloud.com/elux-1/21-inc-embedded-engineer-on-whaleclub-teamspeak

[BitUsher]

Please listen to it if you can. What do you think about it?

https://soundcloud.com/elux-1/21-inc-embedded-engineer-on-whaleclub-teamspeak

What is most fascinating about this is the selling and leasing drone airspace for bitcoin that is going to be managed by these smart devices.

[cryptonikus]

strange that they were able to get 116 mil. funding and they claim, it is not to be profitable. there must be secret plans of how to monetize Asic network they want to create. Im sure its just a base for something bigger. But they dont wanna reveal it to us.

[TheRealSteve]

"what we hoped for" is a $399.99 dev board with a sizable exhaust fan housing a 50-125 Gh/s 0.16J/Gh mining chip.
https://21.co/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C/

[Jammalan the Prophet]

Please explain in plain old english :

Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip

Easily build Bitcoin-payable apps, services, and devices

Also , you forgot the pink unicorn each "device" comes with

Edit:
Forget about it , you're a sig poster....

[brg444]

I think we will start to see some of the very first commercials for Bitcoin miners and mining soon.

Nop.

[Jammalan the Prophet]

Please explain in plain old english :

Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip

Easily build Bitcoin-payable apps, services, and devices

Also , you forgot the pink unicorn each "device" comes with

Edit:
Forget about it , you're a sig poster....

Oh good way to get out of a discussion try and act like my points are invalid because I have a sig,back on topic it isn't for an ROI through mining but it is a very unique device and if you can't figure that out then I don't know what to tell you. A 120gh miner, a plug and play full nude, dev toolkit and api, when it is time to target the mainstream audience expect a very different price but note their chip is better than the ones in the Antminer S5.

The text you posted was copied from their page you can ask them directly but I believe the first quote is answered by the dev tools.

You have the same post over 5 threads with the same stuff , this is why I call you a sig whore

Secondary the text I quoted is from your own post not from the article.

Can you explain how can this device create "devices" ?
I understand that English isn't your strong point but don't make stupidity the one.

Also nice one about the "FULL NUDE"

[gentlemand]

I think we will start to see some of the very first commercials for Bitcoin miners and mining soon.

I thought most of their ethos involved people being unaware of the mining aspect.

[BitUsher]

I suppose I should withhold judgment without more information concerning the "Micropayments Server" but so far I am puzzled and unimpressed. This is a radically different direction than originally discussed.

[GermanGiant]

"what we hoped for" is a $399.99 dev board with a sizable exhaust fan housing a 50-125 Gh/s 0.16J/Gh mining chip.
https://21.co/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C/

LMFAO... it is better to invest that 400 USD into www.CloudMining.website. At least they have a history of payment for over last 10 months - www.cloudmining.website/payments.php

[Jammalan the Prophet]

Congratulations on catching a simple mistype, I had posted similar points in the threads due to the fact that they were all coming at the very same time, this is the first device from a company many have been watching closely. I am posting what I think is good information to know as many won't check the other similar threads and think it is a "400$ pi with an attachment" it isn't. How it can create devices, well that is what they have put, I think they are meaning code for other devices was this is obviously not a 3d printer, maybe an lcd screen on a pi 2 attachment to show codes and use as an open source hardware wallet.

mistype?
funny
what's next? a buttplug and play device ? , 120 gh rimmer?  an unique bondage?

[BitUsher]

I think we will start to see some of the very first commercials for Bitcoin miners and mining soon.

I thought most of their ethos involved people being unaware of the mining aspect.

Well this seems to be for the developers to get ahold of their tools but I do expect them have commercials for future mass items, just an example like the Lightbulb miner they would say "earn bitcoins as easy as screwing in a lightbulb and pairing to an app". The bulb would connect bluetooth and it would authorize wifi through it. The bulb wouldn't mention mining or any hashrate but the app would contain your address and send notifications weekly on how much you have earned in USD or BTC.

Mining without the aspect.

Perhaps their hope is that developers will create better UI with their Micropayments Server to facilitate others to resell excess bandwidth. That may be worth it if you live in a densely popular area or location without free wifi and a app facilitated the use of purchasing bandwidth or Qualcomm resold this bandwidth.

[meono]

Congratulations on catching a simple mistype, I had posted similar points in the threads due to the fact that they were all coming at the very same time, this is the first device from a company many have been watching closely. I am posting what I think is good information to know as many won't check the other similar threads and think it is a "400$ pi with an attachment" it isn't. How it can create devices, well that is what they have put, I think they are meaning code for other devices was this is obviously not a 3d printer, maybe an lcd screen on a pi 2 attachment to show codes and use as an open source hardware wallet.

mistype?
funny
what's next? a buttplug and play device ? , 120 gh rimmer?  an unique bondage?

Never take posts from a sig whore seriously.


This 21 inc is nothing about a failed startup, i bet the VC was clueless as many was in the dot com boom.

[meono]

I think we will start to see some of the very first commercials for Bitcoin miners and mining soon.

I thought most of their ethos involved people being unaware of the mining aspect.

Well this seems to be for the developers to get ahold of their tools but I do expect them have commercials for future mass items, just an example like the Lightbulb miner they would say "earn bitcoins as easy as screwing in a lightbulb and pairing to an app". The bulb would connect bluetooth and it would authorize wifi through it. The bulb wouldn't mention mining or any hashrate but the app would contain your address and send notifications weekly on how much you have earned in USD or BTC.

Mining without the aspect.

Perhaps their hope is that developers will create better UI with their Micropayments Server to facilitate others to resell excess bandwidth. That may be worth it if you live in a densely popular area or location without free wifi and a app facilitated the use of purchasing bandwidth or Qualcomm resold this bandwidth.

That would make as much sense as selling pogoplug as a cloud storage server...... seriously thats why they failed so hard.

Nobody buy a device so they can use cloud storage.

Nobody buy a device so they can use bitcoin blockchain.

Very laughable indeed.

[BitUsher]

That would make as much sense as selling pogoplug as a cloud storage server...... seriously thats why they failed so hard.

Nobody buy a device so they can use cloud storage.

Nobody buy a device so they can use bitcoin blockchain.

Very laughable indeed.

Yes, I have to be creative to think of how to justify this device. The only advantage I can see if they released a microsite antenna attachment that allowed one to resell excess bandwidth with their partners(qualcomm). Essentially the price of the device would become the price of admission into a microsite reseller agreement they arranged with qualcomm or other bandwidth providers. This would also have to depend upon qualcomm making their devices seamlessly integrate into using these microsites without normal cellular users even being aware.

[Preclus]

I posted in the other thread on this but I think anyone who thinks that this is a good idea needs to consider this...

Why would anyone want to run a $400 miner that helps them deal with bitcoin

if instead the 21 company just deployed their own server on the Internet, in a colo that had cheap bandwidth and 24/7 cheap power, and you could connect to that with a nice web interface to do your mining and whatever else they want to do on this piece of hardware you buy

Then you wouldn't have to deal with:

- upgrading the thing with new OSes and software
- fixing it when it had problems
- the slow Rasperberry PI2 itself

and it would be cheaper because you would pay by the month as a service instead of paying $400 for something that will be obsolete next month.

The whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all. It is simply unbelievable that this is their business idea.

Why not sell a Raspberry PI that runs a web server with a daughter board to speed up web serving for $400? How about a PI that runs its own email server? Makes just as much sense as this does.

[meono]

I posted in the other thread on this but I think anyone who thinks that this is a good idea needs to consider this...

Why would anyone want to run a $400 miner that helps them deal with bitcoin

if instead the 21 company just deployed their own server on the Internet, in a colo that had cheap bandwidth and 24/7 cheap power, and you could connect to that with a nice web interface to do your mining and whatever else they want to do on this piece of hardware you buy

Then you wouldn't have to deal with:

- upgrading the thing with new OSes and software
- fixing it when it had problems
- the slow Rasperberry PI2 itself

and it would be cheaper because you would pay by the month as a service instead of paying $400 for something that will be obsolete next month.

The whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all. It is simply unbelievable that this is their business idea.

Why not sell a Raspberry PI that runs a web server with a daughter board to speed up web serving for $400? How about a PI that runs its own email server? Makes just as much sense as this does.

You see..... this is why we call the current trend is bitcoin bubble. Its not about the btc price, its the startups like these got millions in VC....

Anyone here old enough to remember the dotcom boom?
Dejavu again. These VC + tons of sitting cash = throw at any trend that potentially returns 100x times..... No need to see if ideas make any fucking sense.

[BitUsher]

It appears there may indeed be a useful case for this device...

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

These folks are very, very clever.

So you are suggesting their definition of microtransactions is less than 10 cents which is prohibitively expensive to send right now with fees being 2 pennies?
What does this hardware have to do with sending dust, why not just use one of many services like changetip to send microtransactions or is this going to be a decentralized caching layer for micro-transactions that doesn't use an off the chain solution(like the lightning network)?

Yes, I am honestly unsure about the specifics but I'm confident your second statement is close to what they're doing.

See my reply above and yes indeed the microtransactions they refer to will be less than 10 cents. We're likely talking satoshis here.

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

If that is the case , that is a creative solution that also allows bitcoin to scale more (If and only if the process is decentralized and acting like a caching layer). They are really horrible about explaining this simple idea in their marketing I do say.

Case use ... You are a songwriter and manage to convince 5% of the bitcoin users to buy your song for 1 penny in btc each allowing you to earn 2k in profit tax and itunes fee free . Rinse and repeat and earn a reasonable income, and probably much more by releasing through itunes only.

Hmm.. now this sounds exciting as any centralized offchain solution exposes one to the risk of taxes for earned income and counterparty risk. What is also interesting is this opens up a huge market demand for bitcoin as people will be excited to use itunes alternatives where music costs 1 penny a song instead of 99 pennies a song.

We certainly are reading between the lines however and may be delusionally optimistic.

[meono]

It appears there may indeed be a useful case for this device...

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

These folks are very, very clever.

So you are suggesting their definition of microtransactions is less than 10 cents which is prohibitively expensive to send right now with fees being 2 pennies?
What does this hardware have to do with sending dust, why not just use one of many services like changetip to send microtransactions or is this going to be a decentralized caching layer for micro-transactions that doesn't use an off the chain solution(like the lightning network)?

Yes, I am honestly unsure about the specifics but I'm confident your second statement is close to what they're doing.

See my reply above and yes indeed the microtransactions they refer to will be less than 10 cents. We're likely talking satoshis here.

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

If that is the case , that is a creative solution that also allows bitcoin to scale more (If and only if the process is decentralized and acting like a caching layer). They are really horrible about explaining this simple idea in their marketing I do say.

Case use ... You are a songwriter and manage to convince 5% of the bitcoin users to buy your song for 1 penny in btc each allowing you to earn 2k in profit tax and itunes fee free . Rinse and repeat and earn a reasonable income, and probably much more by releasing through itunes only.

Hmm.. now this sounds exciting as any centralized offchain solution exposes one to the risk of taxes for earned income and counterparty risk. What is also interesting is this opens up a huge market demand for bitcoin as people will be excited to use itunes alternatives where music costs 1 penny a song instead of 99 pennies a song.

We certainly are reading between the lines however and may be delusionally optimistic.

Please take the retard's post with a grain of salt (brg44)

If what he described is true, their $400 is doom to fail due to 2 things:

+Operating cost of having "mining device". Which essentially can be greater than tx cost for dust tx

+Spam attack on the network. I can fill up every single 21inc's block with just $400 up front cost?

This is a illusion to fool idiots into thinking "micropayments" are free.