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Topic: It's Happening .... The secrets of 21 inc revealed, and its what we hoped for. - page 7. (Read 11643 times)

legendary
Activity: 3248
Merit: 1070
I don't know why everyone's hung up heating shit is even in the discussion. I doubt the intent is to integrate a 2Th/s miner in a fuckin' toaster, moreso a collection of 20GH/s devices in multiple appliances in households across the world. Imagine living in a world where literally every one of your neighbors and friends is contributing to the security of the BTC network and not even thinking about it.

I'm for this.  I really hope this happens.

let's say that every house can performs 20 x 5 = 100 gh/s, let's say that there are an average of 3 people per house, and let's assume 1B house

so we get 100B of gh/s, equal to 100 exabyte, not bad i guess, much higher than the current total hash
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....

Someone with some sense.

Most others seem to think that "this is what Bitcoin needs".....

Something tells me that 21 Inc is gonna pull a scam.

Something like this is not feasible and I am surprised big names invested in this.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1036
Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....
What about naturally cold climates though? I am sure many Russians wouldn't mind their tv spewing out extra heat at a discounted price versus other tv's.

The problem is people generally have a cheaper source of heat than electricity. Back when I started mining altcoins in Jan. 2014, we were having a wildly cold winter in Illinois, spiking propane prices through the roof to the point that the governor waived all restrictions on propane delivery truckers. So I was glad to be heating half my house with my rig instead of paying $5-6/gallon of propane at its peak. But I also did the math and realized my breakeven point was $2.71/gallon for propane, and normal propane prices around here were under $2. So once the altcoin market withered it no longer made sense to mine, even this past winter. The propane was just cheaper. Natural gas is cheaper yet, wood and corn stove heating is real cheap, and increasing numbers of folks have geothermal or other low-cost systems.

So yeah, some people will see the benefit of it, or won't do the math and think they are benefiting by getting bitcoin miners. But they will have to hunt for those people. Until I can see some math on their projected earnings/device, I've got to be skeptical. I do like the potential for decentralization though, I admit.
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Haven't read the whole thread but wouldn't this be perfect for renters that don't have to pay electric bills?
hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 501
It was a fascinating idea though....

....and the idea has got sold to raise anough money for them. The question is... will we see an execution or see the same fate as of ethereum ? If they come to public to raise more money without the product then I'd doubt their intention.
Seems like another IPO scam, just like Ethereum. Vitalik must be enjoying all that BTC that he criticized. As of right now the only worth IPO investing at was Maidsafe, the roadmap is going on great.
legendary
Activity: 924
Merit: 1132
This isn't necessarily a ripoff.  This is for people who'd be using the power to generate heat anyway.  Any of these appliances that doesn't require the generation of heat for its own sake though, is going to be a dead loss when generating heat for the production of bitcoin.

I'm kind of liking this for some purposes, though mostly silly ones.  For example England now has a law that says you can't have hair dryers that are over 1 KWatt because that's a waste of electricity.  But if you can have a Bitcoin mining machine that, as a side effect, dries your hair ....  

Also?  Unlike a lot of the crap which people have released on the consumer market that wasn't really possible to secure against people hacking it to their own purposes, this is *COMPLETELY* secureable.  

It doesn't require simultaneous delivery of and obscurement of information, such as all the copy-protection crap.  It doesn't require keys the customer could use to spoof it to be present in the device, like so many other kinds of crypto snake oil.  I could easily produce these devices using a public key to check signatures on getwork and encrypt responses, bake it directly into silicon, and even if you reverse-engineer the silicon and extract the public key, you couldn't use it without the private key to get the device (or any other device using that key pair) talking to a different pool.  

As the consumer, your choices are to let it have network access, or not.  

Interestingly, if you let it have network access, and its communications are encrypted, there's no way to know what it's communicating FROM INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.  The power budget for hacking wifi passwords isn't much different from the power budget for bitcoin mining, for example, and a lot of these "appliances"  have subassemblies which provide side channels that could be used as microphones, etc.  
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
FUN > ROI
Is there any proof that any of this is true? I can't find a shred of it.
Nope.
Then again, this is all still based on an FT blog entry and not hard data.  I'll wait for the Chinese interview to get published.

It was actually discussed before - but I guess this thread gained better traction Smiley  Gotta use clickbaity titles.. "You Won't Believe What 21 Inc. Are Planning For Bitcoin!" Wink
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
Is there any proof that any of this is true? I can't find a shred of it.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
What about getting that free TV, or whatever, then rip out the ASIC?


If they gave out free laptops, I'd totally get one.
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer  Cool
I think you'll find there's miners in South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, too Smiley  Not sure about Antarctica.  Could be a nice PR stunt for Bitmain though Wink

I don't think Antarctica has cheap electricity, though.
hero member
Activity: 912
Merit: 1021
If you don’t believe, why are you here?
I don't know why everyone's hung up heating shit is even in the discussion. I doubt the intent is to integrate a 2Th/s miner in a fuckin' toaster, moreso a collection of 20GH/s devices in multiple appliances in households across the world. Imagine living in a world where literally every one of your neighbors and friends is contributing to the security of the BTC network and not even thinking about it.

I'm for this.  I really hope this happens.
sr. member
Activity: 728
Merit: 256
It was a fascinating idea though....

....and the idea has got sold to raise anough money for them. The question is... will we see an execution or see the same fate as of ethereum ? If they come to public to raise more money without the product then I'd doubt their intention.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1036
Hard to see how this idea will work for them. It really only makes sense for devices that we _want_ to produce heat (toasters, water heaters, space heaters, hair dryers, etc.) Getting a cheap TV that spews out excess heat during the summer months, driving up AC costs, would be silly.

Now for heat producing appliances, how many are used a high percentage of the time? In my household of six I doubt we average even 3 minutes/day using the toaster since we don't use it that often. Hard to believe that any ASICs packed into it will ever ROI if they are barely ever on (and network difficulty keeps going up).

So that leaves things like space heaters and water heaters. I guess I could conceivably see those making sense, if they can convince the consumer to go through the hassle of setting up the wireless connections or whatever that will be required to run them. I suspect when real world trials start they are going to be _very_ disappointed by the hashrate they get from their big giveaways.

It was a fascinating idea though....
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
FUN > ROI
There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer  Cool
I think you'll find there's miners in South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, too Smiley  Not sure about Antarctica.  Could be a nice PR stunt for Bitmain though Wink
legendary
Activity: 1988
Merit: 1012
Beyond Imagination
How do they marketing this toaster ?  I have never used any toaster since 10 years ago  Grin

There is a great potential in heating devices at least 2000W or more, but that will raise the difficulty in winter and drop it in summer  Cool
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
i see too many assumptions in this thread. Or maybe you guys know something I don't.


1. Are the applicances going to make use of the heat generated by the ASIC, or, are they just bundling an ASIC with a random appliance?

2. Can you turn it off whenever you want?

It seems that people automatically assume that you can't turn it off or something. Which, in a sense is obviously not true since you can just unplug it. But assuming it's something that shouldn't be unplugged often like, I dunno, lights or something, you guys are assuming that it'll run forever costing you electricity.

If you can just turn it off whenever you want, then it's not really costing you electricity, since you would've spent that electricity anyway. Unless, of course, the ASIC uses additional electricity than what the appliance otherwise would use.

Anyway, too many assumptions, too many unknowns.

Well, I suppose you can say that we are speculating based on what we know so far.
Then again, only time will tell what this thing truly is.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
i see too many assumptions in this thread. Or maybe you guys know something I don't.


1. Are the applicances going to make use of the heat generated by the ASIC, or, are they just bundling an ASIC with a random appliance?

2. Can you turn it off whenever you want?

It seems that people automatically assume that you can't turn it off or something. Which, in a sense is obviously not true since you can just unplug it. But assuming it's something that shouldn't be unplugged often like, I dunno, lights or something, you guys are assuming that it'll run forever costing you electricity.

If you can just turn it off whenever you want, then it's not really costing you electricity, since you would've spent that electricity anyway. Unless, of course, the ASIC uses additional electricity than what the appliance otherwise would use.

Anyway, too many assumptions, too many unknowns.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
my favorite lines from that register article:

Quote
I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

I will agree with that also.
Besides, once the people get informed, I doubt they will go for it.
I disagree if you're able to buy a TV with the same specs of another for 20 -30% cheaper because it's running an asic are you really going to care? Even though there might be a few dollar difference in electric use?

Yes, if I know about the extra charges, and let's not forget the potential dangers, then I wont.
I would rather pay that little extra and know that I can sleep more peaceful.

if this stupid idea to materialize, it has the potential to worsen the reputation of Bitcoin in people's
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
So The Register writes an article about an article from the Financial Times.

One of the opening lines from the FT is "All we do know is that the company, headed by Matthew Pauker, has raised more than $116m worth of venture funding"

There are no facts, no quotes from anyone from 21 or anyone who has a bleeding clue.

Their guesswork sounds like a pretty dumb idea. It's worth calling it a dumb idea if the people they're guessing about actually confirm it.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
my favorite lines from that register article:

Quote
I've written more than a few business plans in my time and if I'd come up with this one I wouldn't be able to stop giggling long enough to present it. Nor, in fact, stop hugging myself for long enough to type it out. Obviously these people are made of sterner stuff.

Inquiring minds will be able to work out that of course this plan, by definition, loses money for consumers. So the big bet underneath it all is are the general public actually stupid enough to go for it? Here's a free toaster, some bitcoin, and please don't check your electricity meter?

Hmm, toughie really but I'd say probably yes. After all, as the phrase goes, no one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. By overestimating it, yes, but not under. ®

Re: decentralization, yes and no. ASIC chips will be out in the wild, so sure perhaps. But this doesn't increase full nodes or fix the centralized pooling problem.

And I don't think the idea is to use the waste heat for the appliances purpose. Its just to have an ASIC in there, along with whatever the appliances function is. So your TV? now its burning electricity constantly.

IMO, the waste heat option IS the way to go, and this concept has been presented before, with "data furnaces" etc as someone above probably pointed out.

What 21 Inc is doing, IMO, is just a brilliant scam.

Yes, I also agree with you.
Sounds really bad to me.

I will agree with that also.
Besides, once the people get informed, I doubt they will go for it.
I disagree if you're able to buy a TV with the same specs of another for 20 -30% cheaper because it's running an asic are you really going to care? Even though there might be a few dollar difference in electric use?

Yes, if I know about the extra charges, and let's not forget the potential dangers, then I wont.
I would rather pay that little extra and know that I can sleep more peaceful.
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