Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[smooth]

My point is that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

Warm water or air (or toast, possibly)

I thought these were going to be sold very cheaply nearly free since the electricity cost is the major cost.

Otherwise what incentive do I have to buy one.

Cheaper product cost. It's the subsidized-handset heater business model.

It is not very compelling. A heater is a major home appliance that lasts for 10 years or more. A cell phone is a device you need to replace every 2 years or so, gets lost, gets stolen, gets dropped, etc.

Sounds like 10 years of lock-in to me. The manufacturer will be getting coins until it breaks down or is replaced. Nice revenue stream.

The NAV of a heater is already very low compared to the much higher monthly expenditure.

The monthly expenditure is the same whether you mine or not, so it is effectively zero here.

The barriers to entry to this market were not $116 million. It hasn't been done because it isn't that compelling.

I don't know about the $116 million. As I said I have essentially zero confidence that because VC's invested in something it is actually a good idea or a good business.

But as far as it not being done before I think you just don't understand the mining or silicon IP markets very well. ASIC mining has only been around for 18 months or so. 21 has been funded and working on their embeddable mining (and whatever else) technology for a good portion of that time.

Bitcoin needs to reach at least 10% adoption before it makes much sense.

Sure, so in that case the $100 million is a long shot bet on what at that point might be an owner of embeddable silicon IP worth many billions if and when BTC adoption is 10%.

There is another reason you idea can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down

That's easy to do. Just mine and burn the hashes. The business case for the subsidy is that the manufacturer will mine a lot of BTC, not that uptime will be 100%.

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[TPTB_need_war]

Sounds like 10 years of lock-in to me. The manufacturer will be getting coins until it breaks down or is replaced. Nice revenue stream.

Was than a rebuttal? Any factual points? A consumer is going to sign a 10 year lockin on insignificant NAV gain  

ASIC mining has only been around for 18 months or so.

2013 seems like 10 years ago to me I guess. It could have been done with GPUs before that. Miners were very resourceful. They didn't find a market demand. Bitcoin's market isn't that large yet.

Heating is not fungible with mining.

There is another reason you idea can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down

That's easy to do. Just mine and burn the hashes. The business case for the subsidy is that the manufacturer will mine a lot of BTC, not that uptime will be 100%.

You miss the point. The consumer has no incentive to ever connect then.

Sorry heating and mining are not fungible. The overlap where it will work is small and especially tiny in a tiny Bitcoin adoption market.

Solar water heating is 90% cost reduction. What percentage of the population uses it? And it doesn't have to maintain connectivity.

What happens when I move? My heater's subsidized connectivity moves too? (That was Eric Raymond's famous snark question to the IETF when they were proposing only .country domain TLDs and why we have .com now)

I think we've established in this thread who is pragmatic and who is pie-in-the-sky.

[smooth]

There is another reason this idea of manufacturer taking all the coins can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down.

No one wants a heater that only works when the internet is online.

Thus what incentive does the consumer have to maintain connectivity if they aren't getting some of the coins and paying taxes on them?

Look you are envisioning a product that the consumer maintains as a miner, I'm not. It might have a prepaid cellular data chip in it (one of the Bitcoin hardware wallet companies are doing this). The manufacturer might offer free monitoring and service maintenance or some other incentive if you hook it up to your WiFi (which had better be easy, or people won't do it, but it could possibly be made easy using a mobile app or something).

I don't know how the business model will work in practice. I do know there is an enormous amount of electric heating that can be harnessed for mining. Some clever business people will figure out how to do that, sooner or later (assuming PoW mining continues to be done), even if not 21.

[worth]

I find the 21 Dot Co. plans to be interesting and potentially pretty exciting. Speak-of efficiency though, I can't help but wonder if this could be achieved more effectively with a different algo like Blake-256 which, to my understanding, is vastly more efficient than SHA-256.  

Efficiency isn't important, it's only important to individuals relative to your competition. Efficiency determines the total hash rate. The amount of energy consumed in PoW is determined by the price of bitcoin. We are in a price zone determined by the physical limitations of available energy space etc. Once we have halved we enter a new zone.

21 are positioning themselves to take advantage of a price spike like the run-up to $1200 when mining with a shitty GPU was more profitable than at any time prior, even more profitable after the more efficient ASICs for a short time. The price dip now has made bitcoin more efficient, not the advancement in tech. That's just given an opportunity to the innovators.

Efficiency is very important in this context (although it doesn't seem like you're using the word efficiency the same way I am).

When you're talking about embedding chips in a wide range of consumer devices from larger household items to mobile devices and even their chargers, you need to do so in a way that is going to be seen as a benefit to the hardware manufacturers who will incorporate the chips into their devices -- and at the same time have it either be invisible to the end user, or be seen as a benefit to them. 

In in most cases this will be a lot more difficult to do if the devices generate noticeably more heat and use a lot more electricity, so anything that can improve this will make it an easier sell.

Yes, you can manufacture more efficient ASIC hardware for SHA-256, but you could also use the same manufacturing techniques to make ASICs designed for a more efficient algorythm and get the same hashrates, but for much less electricity/battery use and at a lower temperature.

A competing startup could potentially challenge 21 just by using a different algo and win more manufacturing partners who don't want to lower the Energy Star ratings of their appliances; or partners who want to sell super light, thin, and quiet (no fan) laptops with long battery life; phone & tablet manufacturers; etc.

There may be more efficient algos than Blake-256 - I'm using it as an example because I've mined a little with it and the white paper mentions the design being specifically suited for lightweight environments.

Here's the white paper:  https://131002.net/blake/blake.pdf

[TPTB_need_war]

There is another reason this idea of manufacturer taking all the coins can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down.

No one wants a heater that only works when the internet is online.

Thus what incentive does the consumer have to maintain connectivity if they aren't getting some of the coins and paying taxes on them?

Look you are envisioning a product that the consumer maintains as a miner, I'm not. It might have a prepaid cellular data chip in it  (one of the Bitcoin hardware wallet companies are doing this). The manufacturer might offer free monitoring and service maintenance or some other incentive if you hook it up to your WiFi (which had better be easy, or people won't do it, but it could possibly be made easy using a mobile app or something).

I don't know how the business model will work in practice. I do know there is an enormous amount of electric heating that can be harnessed for mining. Some clever business people will figure out how to do that, sooner or later (assuming PoW mining continues to be done), even if not 21.

Offering services to miners is not fungible to offering appliances to consumers.

Different level of profit, NAV expectation, portability expectation, specialization, acumen of the customer, and B2B.

[smooth]

Sounds like 10 years of lock-in to me. The manufacturer will be getting coins until it breaks down or is replaced. Nice revenue stream.

Was than a rebuttal? Any factual points? A consumer is going to sign a 10 year lockin on insignificant NAV gain  

There's no signing anything. If you buy a product that lasts 10 years, you won't replace it for 10 years. You have bought 10 years worth of utility in advance.

ASIC mining has only been around for 18 months or so.

2013 seems like 10 years ago to me I guess. It could have been done with GPUs before that. Miners were very resourceful. They didn't find a market demand. Bitcoin's market isn't that large yet.

Correct (although as I said many GPU and ASIC home miners did (and do) in fact view heat as a benefit). Realistically just about any Bitcoin startup is speculation on Bitcoin taking off. I guess the exchanges and a few others might make money before that. Might.

Heating is not fungible with mining.

The experience of GPU and ASIC miners who do this and have done it for years says otherwise.

Your comments about solar water heaters are irrelevant, because people aren't buying them (in the dominant markets). They are therefore inferior in some way (don't work particularly well in built-up cities for example, which is where populations are moving), in the opinion of the people making the purchases. That's the only opinion that matters, not yours.

[TPTB_need_war]

Sounds like 10 years of lock-in to me. The manufacturer will be getting coins until it breaks down or is replaced. Nice revenue stream.

Was than a rebuttal? Any factual points? A consumer is going to sign a 10 year lockin on insignificant NAV gain  

There's no signing anything. If you buy a product that lasts 10 years, you won't replace it for 10 years. You have bought 10 years worth of utility in advance.

Do I have to repeat my NAV point? You are losing the multiple variables now.

[smooth]

There is another reason this idea of manufacturer taking all the coins can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down.

No one wants a heater that only works when the internet is online.

Thus what incentive does the consumer have to maintain connectivity if they aren't getting some of the coins and paying taxes on them?

Look you are envisioning a product that the consumer maintains as a miner, I'm not. It might have a prepaid cellular data chip in it  (one of the Bitcoin hardware wallet companies are doing this). The manufacturer might offer free monitoring and service maintenance or some other incentive if you hook it up to your WiFi (which had better be easy, or people won't do it, but it could possibly be made easy using a mobile app or something).

I don't know how the business model will work in practice. I do know there is an enormous amount of electric heating that can be harnessed for mining. Some clever business people will figure out how to do that, sooner or later (assuming PoW mining continues to be done), even if not 21.

Offering services to miners is not fungible to offering appliances to consumers.

Different level of profit, NAV expectation, portability expectation, specialization, acumen of the customer, and B2B.

Exactly, that's why 21 isn't offering anything to consumers, or miners. They appear at this point to be a silicon IP company. Their products will be sold to manufacturers of consumer products (according to them), or to suppliers of parts to those manufacturers.

[TPTB_need_war]

Your comments about solar water heaters are irrelevant, because people aren't buying them (in the dominant markets). They are therefore inferior in some way (don't work particularly well in built-up cities for example, which is where populations are moving), in the opinion of the people making the purchases. That's the only opinion that matters, not yours.

Solar water heaters have issues. And mining doesn't 

[TPTB_need_war]

Exactly, that's why 21 isn't offering anything to consumers, or miners. They appear at this point to be a silicon IP company. Their products will be sold to manufacturers of consumer products (according to them), or to suppliers of parts to those manufacturers.

That doesn't obviate my point that comparing the end result of servicing miners with service contracts is not fungible to appliances sold at BestBuy to consumers.

The NAV isn't compelling neither is paying taxes on the mined revenue for many folks.

[smooth]

Your comments about solar water heaters are irrelevant, because people aren't buying them (in the dominant markets). They are therefore inferior in some way (don't work particularly well in built-up cities for example, which is where populations are moving), in the opinion of the people making the purchases. That's the only opinion that matters, not yours.

Solar water heaters have issues. And mining doesn't  

You're not getting that nobody is proposing "mining" in anything like the form it is done today, with all of its issues. Embedded deeply into a product (or indeed embedded deeply into a chip which is embedded deeply into a product) it won't be recognizable.

[smooth]

Exactly, that's why 21 isn't offering anything to consumers, or miners. They appear at this point to be a silicon IP company. Their products will be sold to manufacturers of consumer products (according to them), or to suppliers of parts to those manufacturers.

That doesn't obviate my point that comparing the end result of servicing miners with service contracts is not fungible to appliances sold at BestBuy to consumers.

You're still not getting it. There are no service contracts here (or maybe there are, but pretty much the same as any other appliance). You can buy two appliances at BestBuy.  One mines, the other doesn't. The one that mines is cheaper. Other than that they are indistinguishable to you. You're likely going to buy the cheaper one. Or the difference might be a better warranty or some other differentiator. It is up to the manufacturer to decide how to incentivize the buyer.

One time I "bought" (not really) a cell phone and in addition to a cheap phone I got free tickets to a ball game. Whatever works.

Anyway, let's stop cluttering the thread. I think we've wasted more time and space than 21 deserves at this stage. They don't even have a product yet.

[TPTB_need_war]

Your comments about solar water heaters are irrelevant, because people aren't buying them (in the dominant markets). They are therefore inferior in some way (don't work particularly well in built-up cities for example, which is where populations are moving), in the opinion of the people making the purchases. That's the only opinion that matters, not yours.

Solar water heaters have issues. And mining doesn't  

You're not getting that nobody is proposing "mining" in anything like the form it is done today, with all of its issues. Embedded deeply into a product (or indeed embedded deeply into a chip which is embedded deeply into a product) it won't be recognizable.

I thought you were talking about what is viable now and can scale to 100 million users now. Now that you've clarified by implication of your requirement for it to be technologically opaque that this will be maybe a million users scaling up to perhaps 100 million in say 10 years, then it is more sensible. I said from the start it is an incremental market for now, not a mass movement. This also justifies the large venture capitalization. The ambition for opaque technological integration emcompasses wide area of highly capitalized players, e.g. telcom.

Then it will have limited geographic applicability for now. I want to carry my space heater across the USA, etc. It demands centralization of telcom for one.

And coin security will take a precipitous drop every northern summer because the population in the southern hemisphere is much less than and poorer than the northern.

Okay I do understand the push by the elite to Smart Meters (the plans have been in the works for this global Technocracy for decade or more) in every home that can monitor everything we do and turn off our appliances if we don't comply with all edicts.

Surely they are going to push this direction yes. But they won't scale this out overnight.

And I sure hope we can defeat this 1984 before they do.

Nothing wrong with mining + heating appliance if you hold your coins. Sending all the coins opaquely to the fascist corporate Big Brother is 666 directed.

[TPTB_need_war]

Exactly, that's why 21 isn't offering anything to consumers, or miners. They appear at this point to be a silicon IP company. Their products will be sold to manufacturers of consumer products (according to them), or to suppliers of parts to those manufacturers.

That doesn't obviate my point that comparing the end result of servicing miners with service contracts is not fungible to appliances sold at BestBuy to consumers.

You're still not getting it. There are no service contracts here (or maybe there are, but pretty much the same as any other appliance). You can buy two appliances at BestBuy.  One mines, the other doesn't. The one that mines is cheaper. Other than that they are indistinguishable to you. You're likely going to buy the cheaper one. Or the difference might be a better warranty or some other differentiator. It is up to the manufacturer to decide how to incentivize the buyer.

One time I "bought" (not really) a cell phone and in addition to a cheap phone I got free tickets to a ball game. Whatever works.

Anyway, let's stop cluttering the thread. I think we've wasted more time and space than 21 deserves at this stage. They don't even have a product yet.

You've made a very compellling argument to end PoW asap if there are no counter measures and this becomes widespread.

I will be thinking about how to defeat this.

Again nothing wrong with getting people to mine their heat, if they keep their coins. Thus I think I see already how to defeat this movement at least for those who want anonymity. Also it shouldn't be too difficult to reverse engineer what ever turnkey appliances are developed and unlock the mined coins for the user (since obviously it pays more to the corporation than the NAV discount).

The masses will slide into this NWO. There is nothing we can do to stop them. For those that want anonymity and/or better arbitrage on the total income stream, mining for heat and keeping your coins may make a lot more sense.

Edit: the problem is how to keep dumb masses out of your coin but get enough smart people into the coin to make it viable with a circulating use case for currency. A way to keep the dumber of the Socialism Age masses out is anonymity, they are afraid of it (trust their hand held by Big Brother). The way to keep the smart Knowledge Age people into the coin is anonymity, they know they need it to protect wealth. The remaining component is the compelling circulating use case to grow the network effects. Monero proposes a game use. I will propose a different use.

[TPTB_need_war]

Thus mining becomes a VAT that pays for society's heat usage. Isn't this is a theft/redistribution from the impoverished/colonialized/raped tropics to the northern climates?

Evaporative coolers could work in the deserts. Any way to turn heat into airconditioning in the tropics?

[lunarboy]

               Time to put a fork in this thread, it's done.

[TPTB_need_war]

               Time to put a fork in this thread, it's done.

I agree. Let's squelch detailed discussion on how changes to mining affect centralization and blockchain scaling. That wasn't the point of this thread any way right.

 

[lunarboy]

Time to put a fork in this thread, it's done.

I agree. Let's squelch detailed discussion on how changes to mining affect centralization and blockchain scaling. That wasn't the point of this thread any way right.

 

Your incessant concern trolling since joining the forum just over a month ago has reduced this once semi intellectual discussion thread to a hollow echo chamber.
Nice work if you can get it.

[sickpig]

this is actually inspiring that all these divergent opinions still have the maturity and willingness to break bread together in the same room. i'm sure all their differing views were aired and hopefully some positive consensus will arise:

Nick Szabo does actually exist, he's not a virtual entity as I used to believe

If I may, in which occasion those ladies and gentlemen gathered together ?

[Bagatell]

Time to put a fork in this thread, it's done.

I agree. Let's squelch detailed discussion on how changes to mining affect centralization and blockchain scaling. That wasn't the point of this thread any way right.

 

Your incessant concern trolling since joining the forum just over a month ago has reduced this once semi intellectual discussion thread to a hollow echo chamber.
Nice work if you can get it.

2 years +

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=post;topic=68655.msg11331343