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Topic: I speculate that 21 Inc. is insane with their preorder momputer for $400 (Read 1525 times)

alh
legendary
Activity: 1846
Merit: 1052
In short. I don't trust 21 inc.

They have not built any trust with the people, but have convinced enough investors to cough up $100 million (If I remember correctly). They will need to come up with a far better device or service than this one to convince me that this is something more than just a cheesy gimmick.

Are they serious? A Raspberry PI with a command line interface?

If I am missing something please tell me because  I just don't understand what 21 inc. are trying to achieve that is actually good for the consumer.

The more cynical view is that this is merely another step on the way to BIG money. Not silly stuff like Bitcoin, but IPO Money! They might well be able to really spin a convincing story melding Bitcoin with IoT, both of which could be really hot topics. Maybe they could somehow tie it to Facebook for additional pizazz!!!

I can't claim ownership of the IPO money aspect thinking. Just based on their current track record, it really makes sense though.
hero member
Activity: 676
Merit: 501
OMG, I can't believe no one here has thought about this for 2 mins to think about this in a positive aspect & how its not a miner...

& its not an IOT device, Well not in a sense that i see but a paid for service..... ( I can already here u all saying?Huh? What the??? )

Isn't everyone rushing to get a Silk road / Ebay / Paypal service up & running??

https://openbazaar.org/

Anyone???

Think about this.....

BTC Fullnode + wallet + space for apps, My guess would be an ebay style marketplace & escrow.

Think about loading the service across endless nodes & paying them a small amount to run (Hence the small miner)

So Us$400 is entry to setup a distributed ebay style service & the miner is payback for running the service...

This would get the service setup & running on lots of ip addresses saving them $$$$ on running the servers themselves, Leaving them just to run the backend & escrow service...

I'm pissed i didn't think of this first & seems i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed why no one else here thought of it before me??

member
Activity: 68
Merit: 10
In short. I don't trust 21 inc.

They have not built any trust with the people, but have convinced enough investors to cough up $100 million (If I remember correctly). They will need to come up with a far better device or service than this one to convince me that this is something more than just a cheesy gimmick.

Are they serious? A Raspberry PI with a command line interface?

If I am missing something please tell me because  I just don't understand what 21 inc. are trying to achieve that is actually good for the consumer.
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
One of the more cynical viewpoints is that the purpose of this specific device is to convince folks that they will be a "big hit" in BTC, so that they rake in big bucks as part of an IPO (Initial Public Offering of stock). In that view all of this just a side show.

They already sucked in $116M from the VC partners. My bet is those guys want to get a REAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT (i.e. way more than $116M)., not just some piddly BTC ROI view either.

They already have access to some very efficient asics fot their mining farm so those investments are not only going to the devices.
alh
legendary
Activity: 1846
Merit: 1052
One of the more cynical viewpoints is that the purpose of this specific device is to convince folks that they will be a "big hit" in BTC, so that they rake in big bucks as part of an IPO (Initial Public Offering of stock). In that view all of this just a side show.

They already sucked in $116M from the VC partners. My bet is those guys want to get a REAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT (i.e. way more than $116M)., not just some piddly BTC ROI view either.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
This fits perfectly into their business model. They arnt building mining devices, they are building devices that (also) mine. They were the ones who wanted to create basic home devices (toaster, router, etc) that have a mining chip built in. Will these devices make the owners rich? no but thats not the point. The point is distributed hashing. If they can sell one device, to every home in america and this device only uses 30 watts more power than without the mining chip, the home user will not notice the extra cost in power. That ~100Gh/s miner times every home in america equals a massive amount of distributed hashing that people could be "donating" to the network.

Granted, everyone in America wont be buying this specific computer but its a start. This is pushed towards the devs who can/will create a network to allow/accept Bitcoins to flow more easily. Whatever these will endup being designed to do, mining will be a secondary job as will being a full node.

Everyone is getting wrapped up over the mining chip and shouldnt be. Yeah, its more expensive than I expected and if I bought it Id only use it to mine and be a full node. Im not a dev at all so that function of it (Its primary function) is useless to me so I wont be buying it.



And with that being the main goal just mining.   You could buy a RPI and U3's for around around 120 or so.  If you went with compacs and rpi could do it for less than 300 (depends on how high of freq on how many you need to match speed).

I just think it's to get their name out there.  There is nothing new really about RPI and mining.  Their software is only thing new.
legendary
Activity: 1027
Merit: 1005
This fits perfectly into their business model. They arnt building mining devices, they are building devices that (also) mine. They were the ones who wanted to create basic home devices (toaster, router, etc) that have a mining chip built in. Will these devices make the owners rich? no but thats not the point. The point is distributed hashing. If they can sell one device, to every home in america and this device only uses 30 watts more power than without the mining chip, the home user will not notice the extra cost in power. That ~100Gh/s miner times every home in america equals a massive amount of distributed hashing that people could be "donating" to the network.

Granted, everyone in America wont be buying this specific computer but its a start. This is pushed towards the devs who can/will create a network to allow/accept Bitcoins to flow more easily. Whatever these will endup being designed to do, mining will be a secondary job as will being a full node.

Everyone is getting wrapped up over the mining chip and shouldnt be. Yeah, its more expensive than I expected and if I bought it Id only use it to mine and be a full node. Im not a dev at all so that function of it (Its primary function) is useless to me so I wont be buying it.

hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
Why would anyone want to pre-order this? As far as I know 21 isn't handling anything extra to people who pre-order and the supply isn't supposed to be super limited. Pre ordering anything bitcoin related has proven to be a huge risk in fact so I'd stay away. Also the price in obscene. The only thing I like is that there's an efficient mining asic in there but we haven't gotten a chance to see the software yet.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
I think its very expensive for a modified Raspberry Pi computer. Yes it has also an asic chip for mining, but you will not recover your money mining with this.



It's pretty obvious that you will not ROI.  They are using it to show off their chip and some of the software if you read about it.   

I think they wanted something to show off and say they have a product.  This gives them that, and they did not have to get a ton of these built as sales are going to be low.
legendary
Activity: 1470
Merit: 1001
I think its very expensive for a modified Raspberry Pi computer. Yes it has also an asic chip for mining, but you will not recover your money mining with this.

legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
Hopefully they eventually sell the general public some bigger miners. 

Why?
There's absurd amounts of hashpower out there now, burning power like crazy, why is the mantra always MOAR MOAR MOAR?

As we could use more selling big miners to public.   A lot of miners will not ever make it to general public, notice that before you jump on it.

I would like it not just being bitmain supplying home miners.  One company having all control is not a good thing.

I understand where you are coming from, but the arms race mentality that is developing here doesn't usually bode well for small players, if anything, it hastens concentration of power in the hands of a few. This 21 gambit is a short term money grabbing irrelevance imo.

But me wanting another company to sell to general public is a good thing.  No matter what big companies will keep pumping out machines as long as there is profit.  The day's where little guys controlled the market is over.

I'm not saying I like the change, but now a few big guys own most of the market.    I just want another public miner company.
legendary
Activity: 1932
Merit: 1737
"Common rogue from Russia with a bare ass."
Hopefully they eventually sell the general public some bigger miners. 

Why?
There's absurd amounts of hashpower out there now, burning power like crazy, why is the mantra always MOAR MOAR MOAR?

As we could use more selling big miners to public.   A lot of miners will not ever make it to general public, notice that before you jump on it.

I would like it not just being bitmain supplying home miners.  One company having all control is not a good thing.

I understand where you are coming from, but the arms race mentality that is developing here doesn't usually bode well for small players, if anything, it hastens concentration of power in the hands of a few. This 21 gambit is a short term money grabbing irrelevance imo.
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
21 used part of the investments to put into buying and using those very efficient ASICS. This machine is no innovation indeed and if you read through their ToS you'll notice that it takes away a lot of the freedom bitcoin offers. It's almost like they created this as a quick money grab. I'd stay away.

Look at their ToS and Privacy terms and you'll know what I'm talking about. They'll give your information to authorities per request. Shocked
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
Hopefully they eventually sell the general public some bigger miners. 

Why?
There's absurd amounts of hashpower out there now, burning power like crazy, why is the mantra always MOAR MOAR MOAR?

As we could use more selling big miners to public.   A lot of miners will not ever make it to general public, notice that before you jump on it.

I would like it not just being bitmain supplying home miners.  One company having all control is not a good thing.
legendary
Activity: 1932
Merit: 1737
"Common rogue from Russia with a bare ass."
Hopefully they eventually sell the general public some bigger miners. 

Why?
There's absurd amounts of hashpower out there now, burning power like crazy, why is the mantra always MOAR MOAR MOAR?
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1030
I think the device is a joke.

 I'm still holding judgement on 21 itself, the mining chip(s) IN the joke device appears that it might have some decent specs.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
http://www.coindesk.com/21-inc-bitcoin-computer-developers/

21 Inc. is a joke.  Please do not give them money for the "preorder" momputer.   The CEO Balaji Srinivasan must have his head examine by a shrink.

I think it's to show off the chip.   It is a way of showing it to the general public at a very high price.  They can then say they have released a chip to general public, even though it's not that special of a miner.

Hopefully they eventually sell the general public some bigger miners.  The chip has good efficiency stats.  Hard to tell what they would be like with lots of them in a nice big miner.  But I'm hoping they are at least looking at selling bigger miners.
legendary
Activity: 1442
Merit: 1186
I speculate you don't get it! Tongue It's not a bitcoin miner for earning BTC.

That is the reason why it is so bad.

Have you heard of a spork?  That is a combination of a spoon and fork.  A spork is not that common.  

Have you heard of a zorse?  It is a zebra and a horse hybrid.  You don't see that many do you?

So the moral of the story is to either have an asic miner or a computer, not a momputer.

As long as my momputer can cut the crusts of my PBnJ's then it's all good  Wink
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Live Stars - Adult Streaming Platform
I speculate you don't get it! Tongue It's not a bitcoin miner for earning BTC.

That is the reason why it is so bad.

Have you heard of a spork?  That is a combination of a spoon and fork.  A spork is not that common.  

Have you heard of a zorse?  It is a zebra and a horse hybrid.  You don't see that many do you?

So the moral of the story is to either have an asic miner or a computer, not a momputer.
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
I speculate you don't get it! Tongue It's not a bitcoin miner for earning BTC.
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