A bitcoin miner in every hand

[Biodom]

WSJ basically reiterates both pro- and con-arguments, suggesting that it just may be a paradigm shift (could also fizzle spectacularly).
amazon worked, but webvan didn't despite billions invested with star investors.

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/05/20/a-startups-radical-bet-on-bitcoin-mining-hinges-on-paradigm-shift-horizons/

If you believe that world is coming and, by extension, that both the usage and value of bitcoin will soar, 21′s plan could be the play of the century. But the recent history of bitcoin mining, where a falling bitcoin price and an arms race among developers of specialized mining chips, has left many with big doubts.

Tim Swanson, a consistently skeptical digital-currency consultant who makes a habit of challenging bitcoiners’ unbridled optimism, is unequivocal. 21′s plan is “a dumb idea,” he says, adding that “the investors deserve to get what’s coming to them.”
...
In response, a [21 inc] company spokeswoman said such criticism unreasonably assumed that the dollar price of bitcoin wouldn’t rise to offset the shrinking digital-currency payouts even though the network effects of its mass-adoption project should spur greater demand for bitcoin.

“You’d have to believe that 100 million new devices could be generating bitcoin continuously without any impact on the utility – hence on the price — for bitcoin,” she said. The spokeswoman cited how the price had soared from one cent a few years ago to around $230 now, even though the network hashing power and difficulty adjustment have also ratcheted much higher.

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[Zelek Uther]

As it stands, I was saddened to find out that we were basically losing money or barely breaking even with 0.5-0.7w/Gh miners during 2014-2015 while 21 inc were mining at 0.22w/GH

Taken from http://www.coindesk.com/21-intel-bitcoin-mining-strategy/

Intel factories, the documents suggested, were responsible for at least two generations of 21 bitcoin mining chips, a 0.57 w/GH 22nm FinFET chip (codenamed CyrusOne) and a 0.22 w/GH 22nm chip (codenamed Brownfield).

They are quoting 0.22 J/GH at the ASIC chip level, not total system draw at the wall. Competitor ASICS are fairly close, e.g. Spondoolies-Tech RockerBox at 0.35 J/GH (as featured in SP3X and SP20, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg6519857).

[Kyle1836]

This idea won't work. With current difficulty and technology, you wouldn't make anything worth while.

[joeventura]

Public relations ploy

Waste of space.

[dogie]

Unless they make open pool choices, they become number 1. If they don't make open pool choices, they then have to convince everyone to spend that extra $8 initial and $1 per month in exchange for almost exactly nothing in return.

$1 a month might not sound like much, but put another way, who would "subscribe to the bitcoin network" for $12 a year? That doesn't sound like something that can be sold en-mass.

But buying $12/year of lottery tickets ? No problem. There are ways to structure compensation to the consumer that can make this work, even in the face of marginal mining economics.

They're not being offered $12/year of lottery tickets, they're being offered $12/year for $3 of bitcoin and a warm fuzzy feeling.

[brontosaurus]

As it stands, I was saddened to find out that we were basically losing money or barely breaking even with 0.5-0.7w/Gh miners during 2014-2015 while 21 inc were mining at 0.22w/GH

Taken from http://www.coindesk.com/21-intel-bitcoin-mining-strategy/

Intel factories, the documents suggested, were responsible for at least two generations of 21 bitcoin mining chips, a 0.57 w/GH 22nm FinFET chip (codenamed CyrusOne) and a 0.22 w/GH 22nm chip (codenamed Brownfield).

They are quoting 0.22 J/GH at the ASIC chip level, not total system draw at the wall. Competitor ASICS are fairly close, e.g. Spondoolies-Tech RockerBox at 0.35 J/GH (as featured in SP3X and SP20, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg6519857).

And if Intel really did do those chips then they did a pretty shit job of it.

[alh]

When you follow the chain of Wall Street Journal article stuff, you'll also find that 21 highlights the fact that Larry Summers has joined it's Board of Directors. I am pretty sure that Summers was instrumental in getting many of the previous banking regulations dismantled in the late 1990's in the USA. Those of you that have lived through 2007-2014 in the USA can decide for yourself how beneficial his choices were.

This doesn't instill confidence in me, but it may well in others.

[alh]

A new slogan for a router manufacturer:

"Free of Bitcoin"  

After all, everybody know that Bitcoin is "mostly for Terrorists and Drug sales" based on various news articles that aren't too in depth in nature.  <Huge smiley here>

[s1gs3gv]

Unless they make open pool choices, they become number 1. If they don't make open pool choices, they then have to convince everyone to spend that extra $8 initial and $1 per month in exchange for almost exactly nothing in return.

$1 a month might not sound like much, but put another way, who would "subscribe to the bitcoin network" for $12 a year? That doesn't sound like something that can be sold en-mass.

But buying $12/year of lottery tickets ? No problem. There are ways to structure compensation to the consumer that can make this work, even in the face of marginal mining economics.

They're not being offered $12/year of lottery tickets, they're being offered $12/year for $3 of bitcoin and a warm fuzzy feeling.

Unless they implement a lottery style payout strategy where a lucky customer every week/month gets a disproportionate payout.

[s1gs3gv]

Do they think all the companies that pioneered mining chips are a bunch of idiots?

Do y'all think Andreessen/Horowitz, Intel and Qualcomm are a bunch of idiots ?

They central question here is what do they know that we don't.

At this point, I haven't heard any arguments that dissuade me from believing that 21's plans will enable widespread adoption of bitcoin. Whether that adoption results in BTC price improvement remains an open question.

[sidehack]

(how to get away with theft)

[jimmothy]

At this point, I haven't heard any arguments that dissuade me from believing that 21's plans will enable widespread adoption of bitcoin. Whether that adoption results in BTC price improvement remains an open question.

Funny because I came to the opposite conclusion. I haven't seen any arguments that suggest 21 inc's plans WILL enable widespread adoption of bitcoin.

In fact I can only see this causing people to hate bitcoiners more than they already do because it only reinforces the idea that everything bitcoin related is some sort of get rich quick scheme.

[RoadStress]

Do they think all the companies that pioneered mining chips are a bunch of idiots?

Do y'all think Andreessen/Horowitz, Intel and Qualcomm are a bunch of idiots ?

They central question here is what do they know that we don't.

At this point, I haven't heard any arguments that dissuade me from believing that 21's plans will enable widespread adoption of bitcoin. Whether that adoption results in BTC price improvement remains an open question.

That seems to be the trend around here.

[alh]

What's kind of interesting is that there seems to be an underlying theory, that widespread mining will enable widespread adoption of Bitcoin. I personally have no idea what will make Bitcoin attractive as a currency, but it's not obvious that another million folks with tiny fractions of a Bitcoin will make it "popular".

Most everyone on these thread, myself included, are very focused on the production of Bitcoins. As to what makes it popular or mainstream is still a complete mystery to me (and I expect many others).

[sidehack]

My vote is utility. Ease of transactability hopefully will get noticed, and that ease would increase the number of outlets willing to exchange bitcoins for goods and services. Volatility of the market right now is impeding that willingness, but hopefully increasing the proportion of the market based around goods and services, reducing the proportion based on speculation and margin trading, will help that out.

[JorgeStolfi]

When all costs are considered, electricity from an on-board battery is a lot more expensive than electricity from a wall outlet, and absurdly more valuable for the owner of the device.  Therefore, placing miners on mobile devices like smarthphones, tablets, or laptops makes no economic sense.

Moreover, I cannot imagine any advantage of phsically attaching a mining device to some other device with a different function, except water or space heating.   There is a thing called "internet" that allows a device to send information to another device anywhere in the world; and a system called "bitcoin" that is supposed to allow bitcoins to be sent through the internet, even if  the two parties are not connected to the internet at the same time.

So, instead of having 10 mining chips scattered around, firmly attached to my devices, I could have one mining rig with 10 chips sitting anywhere it is more convenient (for example, in my water heater, or in the attic of my summer home in Iceland), sending bitcoins to other devices if, where, and when needed.  The centralized rig would certainly be more efficient, could work at steady pace 24/7, use optimized power supply -- and would not burden the other devices with power load, extra heating, board space, etc..  Physically attaching a mining chip to a router makes as much practical and economic sense as attaching a water filter to a toaster, or a lawn mower to a car.

I cannot make sense either of the fuzzy idea that, with miner chips, devices would be able to get revenue to do micropayments for the services they use, or to generate satoshis for "Wide World Ledger" applications like colored coins, authentication, timesamping, etc.  It will be impossible to exactly match the bitcoins produced by a device to its needs: if the device does not run out of bitcoins, it will generate a surplus of them.  My water heater could generate a lot more bitcoins than my laptop, but will hardly need them; whereas my laptop wil probably will need them the most.

So, if my devices had embedded miners, they would have to pool their bitcoin streams and share them on the basis of need; and possibly topped up with purchased bitcins.   Which, again, is better done with a centralized mining rig than with independent miners.  (By the way, in most higher organisms, from corporations to computers to humans, evolution has found it better to use specialized units for the generation of "revenue" (money or energy), separate from units devoted to other functions that spend from that "revenue".)

Finally, adding a mining chip to a battery charger makes it much more complicated, functionally.  Instead of just taking AC 120 V and putting out DC 6 V, a "miner-enhanced" charger will have to communicate with 21.co servers, manage a wallet, interact with other devices, authenticate itself, etc..  Even if most of that complexity is hidden from the owner, enough of it will be exposed to require some of his attention and time.  Which are much more expensive than the electricity or the chip itself...

[s1gs3gv]

When all costs are considered, electricity from an on-board battery is a lot more expensive than electricity from a wall outlet, and absurdly more valuable for the owner of the device.  Therefore, placing miners on mobile devices like smarthphones, tablets, or laptops makes no economic sense.

While a mobile device is being charged the electricity cost is equivalent to wall outlet costs. Many users of mobile devices like laptops use them while they are connected to an outlet. The mac book pro I am writing this reply on now is a good example.

Moreover, I cannot imagine any advantage of phsically attaching a mining device to some other device with a different function, except water or space heating.   There is a thing called "internet" that allows a device to send information to another device anywhere in the world; and a system called "bitcoin" that is supposed to allow bitcoins to be sent through the internet, even if  the two parties are not connected to the internet at the same time.

I can easily imagine Qualcomm including 21 inc's proprietary IP in new chip designs.

So, instead of having 10 mining chips scattered around, firmly attached to my devices, I could have one mining rig with 10 chips sitting anywhere it is more convenient (for example, in my water heater, or in the attic of my summer home in Iceland), sending bitcoins to other devices if, where, and when needed.  The centralized rig would certainly be more efficient, could work at steady pace 24/7, use optimized power supply -- and would not burden the other devices with power load, extra heating, board space, etc..  Physically attaching a mining chip to a router makes as much practical and economic sense as attaching a water filter to a toaster, or a lawn mower to a car.

This is obviously an adoption play. No one is likely to come up with a workable business plan to place dedicated miners each containing 10 chips in the attics of 10 million people, but it is easy to conceive of 100 million routers/USB hubs/phones/devices each containing a chip with 21 inc IP included on die at near zero incremental cost.

I cannot make sense either of the fuzzy idea that, with miner chips, devices would be able to get revenue to do micropayments for the services they use, or to generate satoshis for "Wide World Ledger" applications like colored coins, authentication, timesamping, etc.  It will be impossible to exactly match the bitcoins produced by a device to its needs: if the device does not run out of bitcoins, it will generate a surplus of them.  My water heater could generate a lot more bitcoins than my laptop, but will hardly need them; whereas my laptop wil probably will need them the most.

So, if my devices had embedded miners, they would have to pool their bitcoin streams and share them on the basis of need; and possibly topped up with purchased bitcins.   Which, again, is better done with a centralized mining rig than with independent miners.  (By the way, in most higher organisms, from corporations to computers to humans, evolution has found it better to use specialized units for the generation of "revenue" (money or energy), separate from units devoted to other functions that spend from that "revenue".)

When there are satoshi to be spent, people will figure out how to spend them.

Finally, adding a mining chip to a battery charger makes it much more complicated, functionally.  Instead of just taking AC 120 V and putting out DC 6 V, a "miner-enhanced" charger will have to communicate with 21.co servers, manage a wallet, interact with other devices, authenticate itself, etc..  Even if most of that complexity is hidden from the owner, enough of it will be exposed to require some of his attention and time.  Which are much more expensive than the electricity or the chip itself...

There is already an enormous amount of complexity hidden in the simplest of everyday devices, and orders of magnitude more in modern mobile devices. This is no challenge.

[RoadStress]

When all costs are considered, electricity from an on-board battery is a lot more expensive than electricity from a wall outlet, and absurdly more valuable for the owner of the device.  Therefore, placing miners on mobile devices like smarthphones, tablets, or laptops makes no economic sense.

If I got it right from the picture that I've posted the plan is to directly integrate hashing cores in the chips inside the phone. Considering their partnership with Qualcomm I'm thinking that they can put some hashing cores directly inside the Qualcomm 3G chip so that everything that chip is activated and the phone has internet connection it will also do some hashes. They are not idiots and they will weight the power consumption to be suited to cell phone usage otherwise they are killing their own business. I don't know why everyone is thinking that they will put gazzilions of GH/s with huge power consumption? That would be very retard and nobody would use their devices.

[s1gs3gv]

When all costs are considered, electricity from an on-board battery is a lot more expensive than electricity from a wall outlet, and absurdly more valuable for the owner of the device.  Therefore, placing miners on mobile devices like smarthphones, tablets, or laptops makes no economic sense.

If I got it right from the picture that I've posted the plan is to directly integrate hashing cores in the chips inside the phone. Considering their partnership with Qualcomm I'm thinking that they can put some hashing cores directly inside the Qualcomm 3G chip so that everything that chip is activated and the phone has internet connection it will also do some hashes. They are not idiots and they will weight the power consumption to be suited to cell phone usage otherwise they are killing their own business. I don't know why everyone is thinking that they will put gazzilions of GH/s with huge power consumption? That would be very retard and nobody would use their devices.

exactly

[JorgeStolfi]

When all costs are considered, electricity from an on-board battery is a lot more expensive than electricity from a wall outlet, and absurdly more valuable for the owner of the device.

While a mobile device is being charged the electricity cost is equivalent to wall outlet costs. Many users of mobile devices like laptops use them while they are connected to an outlet. The mac book pro I am writing this reply on now is a good example.

That might justify embedding the chip in the charger then; not in the battery-powered device itself. (But then, why not a separate trinket that is plugged to the wall outlet too, like a charger, and can mine 24/7 while the user takes the charger to work?)

Moreover, I cannot imagine any advantage of phsically attaching a mining device to some other device with a different function, except water or space heating.

I can easily imagine Qualcomm including 21 inc's proprietary IP in new chip designs.

They could do it, but why?  What is the advantage of physically attaching two chips (or subsystems in a chip) that do totally unrelated functions, neither one needing the other to function?  For authentication purposes and accessing a device-specific wallet, all that the device needs would be an hardcoded private/public key pair and a protected signing curcuit, smatcard-style.

No one is likely to come up with a workable business plan to place dedicated miners each containing 10 chips in the attics of 10 million people, but it is easy to conceive of 100 million devices each containing a chip with 21 inc IP included on die at near zero incremental cost.

Those chips are rather large, I gather.  Increasing the area of a chip reduces the yield and increases cost.  Increasing the power drain requires heftier power sources.  It cannot possibly be "zero incremental cost".

If the mining chips will be profitable for the consumers, the mining rig would be more so -- a "money making machine".  They should sell like beer.

So we must assume that, as many are saying, the chips will be a loss for the customer; basically a way for 21.co to mine at the customers' expense.  (Somewhere they say that the convenience of on-site generation makes the mined bitcoins more valuable than market-bought ones.  I understand this note as an admission that their chip cannot mine at a profit.)

If that is the case, then bakrupcty is the least they deserve.  Someone who steals a penny each from 100 million victims is no less a thief than someone who steals a million dollars from one.

When there are satoshi to be spent, people will figure out how to spend them.

The point is that the satoshis will not be generated where they are needed: some devices will have a surplus, some will not get enough.  "Error 407 -- cannot fetch that webpage because your router ran out of satoshis.  Try asking the fridge if it can spare some of its own."  If the devices are going to pool their mined coins, then, again, why should the chips be attached and assigned to particular devices?

There is already an enormous amount of complexity hidden in the simplest of everyday devices, and orders of magnitude more in modern mobile devices. This is no challenge.

It is not a design challenge, but a practical disadvantage.  The user will be persented with a more complicated device.