Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

can you imagine the feeling of empowerment felt when walking into these hallowed halls? (Cincinnati Public Library 1874 from Classic Pics):

[Melbustus]

...
They are opening up liquidity pathways between central bank currencies, and at the same time are building the tools to tightly control who is allowed to use those pathways.

I suppose this (or the eventual results of this) are where we learn if bitcoin really does enable the opt-out potential that we think it does. It shouldn't matter if these tightly controlled channels are being developed; bitcoin should still enable people to transact freely. If these efforts at rigorous control are successful globally, then bitcoin has failed as a technology, at least at that overarching freedom-enabling level (which is most of the longterm value).

There are other startups which focus entirely on blockchain privacy destruction without providing any compensating benefit to Bitcoin users. Those startups are even worse than Coinbase.

Yes, and I'll continue to fight efforts to broadly <color>-list coins, though I think some degree of it is probably inevitable. Back to the above re this stuff testing whether or not bitcoin is truly resistant to censorship.

Mostly I'd just like to see the enthusiasm tempered with a bit of appropriate skepticism.
...

That's fair.

[Adrian-x]

21e6 are designing ASICs, so you'd expect them to get into mining supply and mining. But surely it makes sense for them to use some of that capital to directly buy BTC reserves.

I'm very, very curious how they're going to spin this hardware focus toward practical applications for mainstream consumers

there are lots, I can think of a few. reserving comment for future deployment.

[Erdogan]

can you imagine the feeling of empowerment felt when walking into these hallowed halls? (Cincinnati Public Library 1874 from Classic Pics):

Sometimes. I can imagine the feeling someone interested in knowledge, with restrained access to books, at the time. Then I think of the Internet...

[justusranvier]

can you imagine the feeling of empowerment felt when walking into these hallowed halls? (Cincinnati Public Library 1874 from Classic Pics)

That reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with an uncle who was a fan of the Highlander series.

He was gushing about how great it would be to posses the accumulated knowledge of many centuries of human civilization, and then I asked how much of the memories about what happened 5000 years ago was actually useful as opposed to be merely interesting to people who like that kind of thing.

[cypherdoc]

can you imagine the feeling of empowerment felt when walking into these hallowed halls? (Cincinnati Public Library 1874 from Classic Pics):

Sometimes. I can imagine the feeling someone interested in knowledge, with restrained access to books, at the time. Then I think of the Internet...

that's my point.  it's all relative...

[Adrian-x]

21e6 are designing ASICs, so you'd expect them to get into mining supply and mining. But surely it makes sense for them to use some of that capital to directly buy BTC reserves.

There is zero reason to invest >$100M to make mining ASICs at this point. Too many options already exist and the market is largely saturated.

From the article they seem to be focused on expanding consumer usage options for bitcoin and Internet of Things. Might be working on a cheap HW chip that interfaces with bitcoin to enable IoT devices to make micro-payments. Power requirements in IoT devices do not allow for a CPU running even a SPV wallet. You'll need to create a dedicated HW design of some sort, or some type of proprietary interface that connects to a central server service.

According to Silicon Valley investors such as those taking stakes in 21, that failure to gain mass adoption is partly because the public’s attention has been misguidedly focused on bitcoin’s limited potential as a digital alternative to traditional currencies. In reality, they say, its underlying technology has far wider applications than that. Unlike the currency transactions that are generally associated with bitcoin, these new uses could range from lawyer-free smart contracts to tamper-proof online voting systems.

Qualcomm’s involvement could spur speculation that 21 has its sights on the so-called “Internet of Things.” That’s the idea that a myriad of smart, Internet-connected appliances will in the future communicate with servers, networks and each other to optimize their operation, maintenance and energy usage without direct human involvement.

It's all just speculation, but that is what this forum is for.

actually it is most likely a mining ASIC application, the first mining outfit to effectively deploy decentralized ASIC hardware and find a value proposition for the 100% efficient heat generation will clean up in the mining space.

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

Maybe they're developing [...] a full-node-ASIC, fit for inclusion in every wifi router (for example)?

That would be extremely cool. But is a dedicated/specially designed chip necessary for such low-intensity computing?

[cypherdoc]

Dow -291

prepare thyself.

[thezerg]

Maybe they're developing [...] a full-node-ASIC, fit for inclusion in every wifi router (for example)?

That would be extremely cool. But is a dedicated/specially designed chip necessary for such low-intensity computing?

I would think that you'd prove the market first in an FPGA with hard processor design first.  Performance/battery life would not be as good, but it would be good enough for many products -- certainly good enough for the first gen.

[tvbcof]

can you imagine the feeling of empowerment felt when walking into these hallowed halls? (Cincinnati Public Library 1874 from Classic Pics):

Look at the elegant carvings and structure of the building and the infrastructure to get access to the books and so forth.  Truly awesome.

Now, if most of each one of those books contained a record of someone buying a latte or losing a satoshi-dice bet then we have a pretty good representation of Bitcoin.  A really good example of taking something worthwhile and sullying it.

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

if you fail to see the fundamental difference between those stacks and the already primitive flash drive on my newish machine, i fail to see the interest hanging out here has for you.

[brg444]

21e6 are designing ASICs, so you'd expect them to get into mining supply and mining. But surely it makes sense for them to use some of that capital to directly buy BTC reserves.

There is zero reason to invest >$100M to make mining ASICs at this point. Too many options already exist and the market is largely saturated.

I wouldn't be so sure of that......

Just look at Bitfury who are raising money like it's nothing every other month.

[justusranvier]

if you fail to see the fundamental difference between those stacks and the already primitive flash drive on my newish machine, i fail to see the interest hanging out here has for you.

There's also the issue that what the blockchain records is not records of transactions, but rather proofs of ledger integrity.

The blockchain is a statement that, "no matter how many lattes were purchased or Satoshi Dice bets were placed, the number of bitcoins available for spending, is and always has been, exactly correct"

Recording all transactions that have happened is done because that's the easiest way to generate the proof, not because storing that kind of history is the purpose of Bitcoin.

[msin]

21e6 announcing they've raised $116M (!): http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/10/secretive-bitcoin-startup-21-reveals-record-funds-hints-at-mass-consumer-play/

*still* not saying exactly what they're up to...

Wow, that's incredible, not just for a BTC related company, but for any silicon valley tech company in stealth mode to raise that amount, has to have a very significant product and team.

mmmh

http://uk.businessinsider.com/juicero-raises-120-million-2015-1?r=US


^Helps put things in perspective...

Haha, good point!  Although I would still argue it's extremely rare to see any stealth startup in any space raise that kind of funding.

[Erdogan]

if you fail to see the fundamental difference between those stacks and the already primitive flash drive on my newish machine, i fail to see the interest hanging out here has for you.

There's also the issue that what the blockchain records is not records of transactions, but rather proofs of ledger integrity.

The blockchain is a statement that, "no matter how many lattes were purchased or Satoshi Dice bets were placed, the number of bitcoins available for spending has been perfectly, is and always has been, exactly correct"

Recording all transactions that have happened is done because that's the easiest way to generate the proof, not because storing that kind of history is the purpose of Bitcoin.

This is exactly right. The ledger aspect is overblown.

[Melbustus]

...
Recording all transactions that have happened is done because that's the easiest way to generate the proof, not because storing that kind of history is the purpose of Bitcoin.

Well said.

[marcus_of_augustus]

...
Recording all transactions that have happened is done because that's the easiest way to generate the proof, not because storing that kind of history is the purpose of Bitcoin.

Well said.

embedding the hash of UTXO in the block headers and retaining only the last few hundred blocks is being experimented with as a client option.

[cypherdoc]

Dow -333 smackdown:

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

embedding the hash of UTXO in the block headers and retaining only the last few hundred blocks is being experimented with as a client option.

screw that, i want direct access to a copy of the entire blockchain at all times.