The 21 Bitcoin Computer

[o0o0]

main problem: people dont understand the vision of that company.

[ ] This is the fault of the (non) customers for being too stupid (or just not psychic enough)

[ ] This is the fault of the company for not communicating its vision effectively.

Needs more info i'll agree but it is preorders and I think this initial round is very developer centric and test bed while they fine tune a more cut down device.. I guess consider it like an occulus rift dev kit?

[1715186370]

1715186370

[o0o0]

What's the point of including a miner that will never pay for itself?

If you need internet access, why not just use more efficient cloud-based APIs?

Can the blockchain ever scale to handle machine-to-machine micro-payments?

Can a RPi2-class CPU handle a bitcoin full node when bitcoin will have been scaled to handle machine-to-machine micro-payments? (ie. several orders of magnitude more tx per second)

I think it adds to the whole package. On the site faq it says that the miner component isn't aimed to generate huge mining returns. They state that it will give a trickle of bitcoin to use for dev and testing and expenditures (the pool brings constant payments in instead of an unreliable hit every x days / 6 hours and I believe they state they don't take a portion of the coins).

I don't believe its machine to machine micro payments its all gathered and pushed through their mined blocks or something i'd have to re-read the faq (which isn't rich of information).

21 inc I believe is taking bitcoin and becoming the equivalent of mastercard / visa in this space. The devices etc are part of the global scheme like your paypass paywave or eft machines. In the end maybe 21 inc provides devices to businesses etc and priority support on a rental basis?

Its actually smart... become the blockchain-bank major provider.

There is a lot more to the roadmap for their devices and I think the focus everyone is placing is on the devices they are making rather than their intention to bring bitcoin to mainstream spending and being the goto company that businesses pay to accept bitcoin payments.

[Sir_lagsalot]

Man, this is pretty cool. What's it's gh/s?

[RGBKey]

$400 seems a little expensive for a modded RPi2?

also, can you buy this thing with bitcoin? no? well...

Wait, you can't buy it with bitcoin? For all they seem to be trying to promote bitcoin, that's pretty dumb...

[johnyj]

I guess anyone that is technically capable of running this thing already have enough hardware to setup the similar function with dedicated platform and much higher performance

The unique part is that trading platform (built-in and close sourced), which does not make lots of sense since other dedicated trading solutions already exists today

I would more like to see a POS terminal which accept mobile bitcoin payment, but that is also not necessary since anyone can setup a tablet with much lower cost

There are so many rich people in this world, 21 Inc. just proved that  

[fairglu]

They state that it will give a trickle of bitcoin to use for dev and testing and expenditures (the pool brings constant payments in instead of an unreliable hit every x days / 6 hours and I believe they state they don't take a portion of the coins).

I can understand the need for a trickle, but you would just be able to get more if instead of spending USD on the miner you spent the same USD buying BTC. Also a "trickle" means dust, which means you'll need to pay proportionally high fees and deal with a fragmented wallet so it's lose-lose.

(if you ever mined for trickles at a P2Pool, you will know that a fragmented wallet is not very practical)

[favdesu]

I guess anyone that is technically capable of running this thing already have enough hardware to setup the similar function with dedicated platform and much higher performance

The unique part is that trading platform (built-in and close sourced), which does not make lots of sense since other dedicated trading solutions already exists today

I would more like to see a POS terminal which accept mobile bitcoin payment, but that is also not necessary since anyone can setup a tablet with much lower cost

There are so many rich people in this world, 21 Inc. just proved that  

once openbazaar is out, you can run this on a RPi2 - and it's open sourced. I don't see any value in this box.

advertising with "passive income" is kind of misleading too...

[neoneros]

If it is used for micropayments, is there not a better choice of crypto other than bitcoin?
transaction costs for micro/dust transactions will make it even more expensive.
Running a registry for payments and a full node can be done on muc cheaper sollutions. The fact it runs as a miner, but will never mine a block seem futile.
I can see the software might add up to the use of it, but it does not justify the cost and seems a bit backwards.

[mammon]

It's just a nice Toy, nothing more...

Who would sell his S5 with PSU and buy back this?

For the people who can allow throwing money away, this is great.
If you do your  math, you will never buy this

[okae]

It's just a nice Toy, nothing more...

Who would sell his S5 with PSU and buy back this?

For the people who can allow throwing money away, this is great.
If you do your  math, you will never buy this

well yes, i agree with you that now it seems to be useless, i mean if you compare the cost with the efficiency, but dont forget that maybe this is just the first step for the future of the mining, i mean that maybe in the "next future" we will see all those "circuits" everywhere in all the appliances imaginable, in that case is a first great step... maybe

[wlefever]

$400 seems a little expensive for a modded RPi2?

also, can you buy this thing with bitcoin? no? well...

Wait, you can't buy it with bitcoin? For all they seem to be trying to promote bitcoin, that's pretty dumb...

You can purchase it with Bitcoin through Purse.io if you really want to.

https://twitter.com/PurseIO/status/646075586838814720

[DooMAD]

I'd say this paragraph from the medium post sums up the aim most concisely:

Conceptually, we believe that embedded mining will ultimately establish bitcoin as a fundamental system resource on par with CPU, bandwidth, hard drive space, and RAM. That is, one can imagine the ultimate thin client in which a system designer consciously chooses a relatively slow CPU but a relatively strong 21 mining chip, using the bitcoin generated therein to purchase computation in the cloud.

Although I suspect by the time this vision gets close to becoming viable, the present hardware they've got on offer might be somewhat outdated.  It's almost as though they're selling a direction or a mindset, rather than a finished product.  They've got a long road ahead of them to reach that kind of outcome.  Still, I can see the potential if they can make it work.

[HeroCat]

Nice computer, but the price is too high  May be it is possible to implement also BTC mining option, then price looks better 

[JorgeStolfi]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3lxrkg/all_the_comedy_gold_youll_need_to_know_about_from/

After months of suspense, the company finally revealed what market they were after:
Integrated Devices for the Internet of Things (IDIoTs).

[brg444]

Pretty exciting times. If this all plays out like 21 inc envisions it 11/16/2015 will go down in history as the start of the IoT.

If you want a positive outlook on how these devices could be used check out the retweets of their CEO here: https://twitter.com/balajis

If you want the negative just think in pure fiat and commercialized mining terms: These will never ever ROI on their mining capabilities (not that they were meant to...see the big picture here guys).

I'm glad that someone else gets it. The utter ignorance and narrow mindedness of people here is appalling.

[yayayo]

I'd say this paragraph from the medium post sums up the aim most concisely:

Conceptually, we believe that embedded mining will ultimately establish bitcoin as a fundamental system resource on par with CPU, bandwidth, hard drive space, and RAM. That is, one can imagine the ultimate thin client in which a system designer consciously chooses a relatively slow CPU but a relatively strong 21 mining chip, using the bitcoin generated therein to purchase computation in the cloud.

Although I suspect by the time this vision gets close to becoming viable, the present hardware they've got on offer might be somewhat outdated.  It's almost as though they're selling a direction or a mindset, rather than a finished product.  They've got a long road ahead of them to reach that kind of outcome.  Still, I can see the potential if they can make it work.

Personally I don't see potential for this specific usage scenario, because it is based on irrational assumptions: Why would a customer that wants processing power pay extra for a strong mining chip to purchase cloud processing power in a second step, if he could just pass on the mining chip and instead invest the funds directly in a more powerful CPU? That makes no sense for the customer - it only makes sense for 21, because they can profit from a) higher profit margins by selling their own simple-to-design mining chips and saving money on low-margin third party CPU, b) profit from (exorbitant) pool fees of their mining customers, and possibly c) profit from offering/mediating cloud computing services matched with their products.

ya.ya.yo!

[Denker]

I'm not technically that deep into all that stuff so I can not say if this is something amazing or more like "meh".
This thread is separated in two parties it seems. I myself will watch 21 and see what will happen the next months.Of course I hope it is something revolutinary what helps us to push Bitcoin forward.

[brg444]

The price is way over the top to get an internet of things going.. But surely machines like this will boost the node count significantly.

How would updating this thing go?

This is a pilot program, a devkit for developers, it is not aimed at mass production or consumers.

[RGBKey]

$400 seems a little expensive for a modded RPi2?

also, can you buy this thing with bitcoin? no? well...

Wait, you can't buy it with bitcoin? For all they seem to be trying to promote bitcoin, that's pretty dumb...

You can purchase it with Bitcoin through Purse.io if you really want to.

https://twitter.com/PurseIO/status/646075586838814720

That's not the point, they should be accepting bitcoin directly through their site, not relying on a third party.

[Come-from-Beyond]

This is a pilot program, a devkit for developers, it is not aimed at mass production or consumers.

When will we get the next product and what will it be?