The 21 Bitcoin Computer

[Mr Felt]

I wonder where the targeted markets and customers are for this product. So far, I have seen here people said it was an interesting product, but no one said that he would buy one. It seems everyone is hoping someone else but himself will buy it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're their own target market (through a subsidiary co, partner, investor company (possibly with overlapping ownership)).  More to the point, it's very possible this device will be part of another device, system, or service not yet made public (possibly through a subsidiary or related entity, partner, etc).   By analogy, think about how those Solar City pv panels fit nicely w/ those Tesla batteries for your auto and home, and how SC and T's innovations in PV and energy storage will give them opportunities to meet all kinds of SpaceX client needs in the future (energy generation, energy storage, battery operated autonomous vehicles, software for all this stuff, etc.).  Musk's multi-pronged operation demands its own factories (spare part demand alone may justify it).  Given the folks behind 21 as well as the published funding amounts, its probably not unreasonable to think that 21 is up to a lot more than what has been made public today. 

[meono]

Exactly, and more importantly: you likely won't have to pay for transactions fees.

And wait several hours to get your transaction included into a rare 21inc block?

They're currently mining 3-4 blocks a day. Enough to regularly settle millions of microtransactions on chain. Think of it like a payment channel maybe?

Moreover, if they succeed in their plan to embed mining chips into every internet connected devices I can imagine that could eventually considerably increase their share of the mining market.

Then you dont know what the fuck the mining cost is.

You think running this device is free?

The point is not about having breakeven point, anyone with half brain already know home mining is long gone. The point is the operating COST of this device.

Whats stopping spamming attack on their mining network if what you "described" is their actual service?

You sound dumber every posts.

[7788bitcoin]

BTW, the 21 inc computer is for pre-order at the moment...
Personally, I have a bit of strange feeling about the term "pre-order" in bitcoin mining world...

[brg444]

BTW, the 21 inc computer is for pre-order at the moment...
Personally, I have a bit of strange feeling about the term "pre-order" in bitcoin mining world...

We're not talking about Butterfly labs here....

[dwdoc]

How about connecting it to a vending machine?
If it had a qr scanner it could accept bitcoin payments and pay for its own supplies and electricity.

PS- who else hates spell correctors that type "Bitcoin" when you mean "bitcoin?" 

[adamstgBit]

little machines autonomously making money online, is this the beginnings of skynet?


                Buy 21 bitcoins or die!

[RoadStress]

The main question is: Does it fork?   Will it be able to withstand a hard-fork?

By mining on their pool, with their device, your tx will always have high priority against all other tx from others users.
You have paid for this, and you will maintaining the pool and then the priority.

This should be read twice by the people thinking about ROI.

[johnyj]

I have never really understood the ambitious idea of 21 Inc. After seeing this I'm more confused. It does not fit into any practical use I can think of... A freelance market for developers? Who is going to buy those software/app? Another guy having same 21 bitcoin computer?  

Micro payment is a dead end, many enterprises have tried and gave up in favor of bulk rate charge model

[odolvlobo]

Here are the benefits that 21 claim:

A new approach to micropayments.

Micropayments means sending small amounts of money. Mining a small amount of money does not make it any easier to send a small amount of money.

Silicon-as-a-service.

Parallel or not, it makes little economic sense for a device to mine bitcoins in addition to its normal function.

Decentralized device authentication.

Sending bitcoins from an address is an inefficient and outmoded method of authentication. It is cheaper and more effective to sign something other than a bitcoin transaction. Either way, it doesn't require mining.

Machine Twitter.

Mining is not necessary to monitor the block chain.

Devices that can pay for associated services.
Devices that can pay your channel partners.

There are simpler and more cost effective methods for devices to pay for services and subscriptions, and they don't involve mining. Furthermore, the device will eventually not be able to mine enough bitcoins to pay for the service. Then what happens?

Bitcoin-subsidized devices for the developing world.

It is hard to see how the device can effectively subsidize its own cost plus the cost of a cell phone at the rate of a couple dollars per month.

[billyjoeallen]

21 is promoting paying for content directly as opposed to ad-supported content. That is roughly analogous to broadcast TV vs. cable.  It's a different business model, but one that can only be done with microtransactions. To continue the metaphor, it would be like paying for cable every time you changed the channel instead of a monthly bill.  Currently, that cost is supported primarily by the block subsidy, and runs at about 65 kWh per transaction. (300 MW mining network, 1.27 transactions per second.) That's about $4 per transaction. Also, at the current 7 TPS (or less) transaction limit,  There couldn't possibly be more than a thousand users of this premium internet before it bogs down and takes our entire network with it.

Weirdly, 21 publicly supports BIP100, the proposal to increase blocksize and therefor transaction capacity only when a majority of mining votes to do so. Why?  The only logical explanation is that they expect to dominate mining and vote to increase blocksize FASTER than BIP101 would automatically increase it!

[favdesu]

$400 seems a little expensive for a modded RPi2?

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

[billyjoeallen]

$400 seems a little expensive for a modded RPi2?

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

Raspberri pi:  $35
63 GH/s antminer U3: $20
128GB SD card: $25
wifi dongle $10
total hardware: $90

21 microcomputer $400.00???

[NoRespect]

wow,,,that's a cool device 

[P-Funk]

This thing is a joke. All I see is discussion of its technical merits or lack thereof, but the real question is why are they making it? I think they are trying to keep investors happy and prove they're not producing vapor.

[devil11]

Hmm...
So good kind of thing but my out range !!
I like this invention 

[Possum577]

The 21 Bitcoin Computer

Today we’re announcing a new kind of device for sale: the 21 Bitcoin Computer...

LiteCoinGuy, you work for 21?

What's the expected ROI (in time) on this $400 machine. And don't tell me "well that depends on...", of course it depends on a lot of things, but any company that wants to sell something will do the assumptions for us and let us know how quickly this machine brings home the profit!

[smooth]

Exactly, and more importantly: you likely won't have to pay for transactions fees.

And wait several hours to get your transaction included into a rare 21inc block?

They're currently mining 3-4 blocks a day. Enough to regularly settle millions of microtransactions on chain. Think of it like a payment channel maybe?

4 blocks is 4 MB. They can only settle millions of microtranasctions if each is about one byte. Or they could be settled offchain, but you don't need mining for that at all. If you only settle once a month you have 30 bytes. That won't work either.

[futureofbitcoin]

Yes, you can indeed make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly selling bitcoin, but by selling digital goods for bitcoin. That is, you are not going to get rich by immediately selling the bitcoin mined by the device for offline currency, but you can potentially do very well by selling digital goods and services to others for their bitcoin.

Wow, what a freaking scam! I was kind of borderline with this whole thing, but flat out deceiving people like that is just wrong.

"you can potentially do very well by selling digital goods..." So that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS 21 COMPUTER THEN!

It's like saying "Yes, you can indeed make a profit with McDonalds Big Macs. However you would do so not by directly eating the Big Macs, but by working somewhere and getting paid to do so."

[vrm86]

1. Buying / selling goods with command line? WHAT?

2. How mining BTC on a single chip can enhance business profits?

[Amph]

another uselesses expensive device, that only few rich elite will buy, just to try it

we have enough of this already, they should think first to accomodate the majority and get rid of those niche things