I had the idea of a "crypto router" back in 2016 (and some work had taken place on it in late 2016 and early 2017) but unfortunately things did not work out with the plan and it basically came to a halt (the original idea was a little different to what I am presenting here but not all that different).
I have given up on trying to find any business partners to work on this idea now and so am simply going to outline the concept for others to run with if they think they can make it happen (don't ask me for any help or funds though as that is not on offer - am just giving away the idea).
The home (or small business) WiFi router is about the least shiny but still mass-market computer related product that we have (normally kept either pretty much out of sight or somewhere that is not very noticeable) and therefore IMO one that has a huge potential for improvement. The improvements can be both in its UI, its functionality and its general appearance (i.e. make it a lot more attractive for a start so it becomes a "show piece" rather than just a boring box with some flashing LEDs that is only inspected when your internet seems to be dead).
The first idea I had about how the router can change to become a far more important device could be to add entertainment features into it (as they can all have a web UI which can be easily tweaked and improved then why not make it a music and video playing device that is accessible to every other device connected via a browser for a start). But the far more interesting idea that I had (when I realised that the Lightning Network was going to be the future for Bitcoin) is to turn the router into a Lightning Node (with a catchy name like perhaps "Lightning Rod" or "Leyden Jar" or
).
For merchants who so far haven't accepted Bitcoin payments but are becoming interested in doing so (and maybe not just wanting to immediately convert that BTC into fiat as was the case with the first wave of merchant adoption) this could be the easiest way for them to do this whilst at the same time helping to make the Lightning Network more decentralised (just imagine the impact if a large franchise encouraged all of its franchisees to install such devices).
One of things that people might not have realised was that pretty much *all* publicly located WiFi devices were found to be insecure last year and so are going to need to be updated this year (hence the right time to be creating this device is *now*).
