Topic: Qualcomm funds startup to use Bitcoin for Internet of Things - page 3. (Read 5541 times)

They just want to sell devices probably.

Yeah pretty much this. Already checked it out? They're hiring.

100 mil for a new asic chip?

 

 

with that kind of money they can own 50 % of the network right now.

https://www.cbinsights.com/investor/qualcomm-ventures


They are funding it (21 Inc, whatever the will be doing), not taking an active part in it, so no (insert buzzword salad) inside qualcomm chips.

Also that (insert buzzword salad) 21 inc would be doing looks to be probably mining:
https://www.cbinsights.com/company/21e6

Imagination combined with new "toys"  ==  A great time to be in the right place. 

Source is WSJ so gave it a read

21’s lead investors include U.S. venture-capital heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and RRE Ventures, along with Chinese private-equity firm Yuan Capital, with a strategic stake going to chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.QCOM -1.13% through its venture-capital unit.

Additionally, Khosla Ventures and Data Collective have invested in 21, as well as chief executives and founders from various tech companies, including PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, eBay Inc. co-founder Jeff Skoll, Dropbox Inc. CEO Drew Houston, Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Zynga Inc. co-founder Mark Pincus

This is an interesting set of backer companies and will be something I will keep track of as well.

Perhaps they are going to develop a more consumer-friendly Trezor

Qualcomm makes chips for phones.  One innovation of the Bitcoin blockchain is identity via private key.  This would make SIM cards for phones obsolete.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113181/what-if-bitcoin-could-replace-sim-cards

Yes, that is exactly what is meant by "internet of things".  There is a cost to running every machine in the world, and there is a cost to allocating resources.  Objects are managed by their owners.  It can take a great deal of time to allocate your resources efficiently.  With an internet of things, your objects compete to provide services within your guidelines, but without your explicit micromanagement.  This frees humanity to focus on the bigger picture: their goals in life.

This can also be extended to the relationships between managers and employees.  A decentralized corporation will be owned by shareholders.  They will provide the currency that ultimately goes to the only employees in the corporation: individual contributors.  Management is eliminated completely, and replaced by a hierarchy of management software objects that work toward the goals defined by shareholders.  Anything that cannot be done by a machine is offered to human employees by the management software objects, probably all on a contract basis.  That includes design, implementation, verification, and support of new products.  Elimination of human managers is Dilbert's dream come true.  Shareholders set out goals and provide money.  Their corporation's IoT manages those resources toward the goals.

This is so mind-blowing!

Absolutely, and that's a great example.

Every rivalrous resource that is now being allocated dumbly, because it's not "on the market," can be allocated smartly, reflecting each person's preferences and priorities. A subset of that enormous set of possibilities is idle resources. The endpoint is zero idle time. Every machine working at full capacity at all times. This is so incredibly far from what we have now that the efficiency gains are staggering to think about. And if every machine of a certain type can go from, say, 9% utilization to 90% utilization, that means the cost to use or own those machines drops tenfold. The technology gets 10x cheaper, just like that. If this were to happen across the board, it would mean a massive increase in the standard of living and far less waste.

Holly $#!+ Could it be... maybe...

What if they are looking at producing chips to conduct BTC transfers that could go into ANYTHING?
Want to rent that car? Send from your phone to start your 100 mile rental. You could meter about anything, you could put such chips in everything from soda machines to hotel room doors (these have to be replaced anyway since they are now 100% hackable).
One could envision a world of devices ready to serve you as soon as payment is received. These devices could be anywhere. You could design a new shifter knob for your car then send your file along with payment to a 3D printer. There is no end to the ideas.  

Impressive if this is working out!

That's kind of fucking awesome.  Really cool thoughts in this thread.

I think you are spot on. Smart electronics are all connected now and they have no way of transferring value to make a deal.

Another easy to understand example would be "lease of computing power". Supposed I have a very powerful computer idling and someone needs a burst of computing power to crunch some numbers or to convert a video. Smart machines can find computing power auction sites and look for the cheapest rate for CPU time. Machines can complete the deal in bitcoin.

Looks like you are guessing right.

Bit_Happy, I think your on to something.  This looks like a new phase. If I'm guessing their intent correctly, they are creating hardware for the coming bitcoin economy. That's a big investment and vote of confidence over just accepting them for payment. It's all happening so fast!

The basic use case I imagine is the situation where two machines with two different owners are drawing from the same utility, say electric power, being offered by a third party. Suppose there isn't enough to power both of them. How are the machines to decide who gets priority in receiving the power?

Well, if the owner of Machine 1 has a high preference for the machine to run uninterrupted (say a server), even if it were to be expensive, he can pre-allocate some spending money to the machine, as an insurance policy in case of power shortages. Meanwhile, the owner of Machine 2, maybe a poorer person or maybe someone who cares less if their machine's operations were temporarily interrupted (say a clothes dryer), would not do this. In fact, they may even allow their machine to sell excess power if someone is paying enough for it.

Then the person who values the resource more can pay for it, enriching others who value the resource less.

This could be for electricity, for driverless cars negotiating right of way on the road for users of different income classes or different time preferences (rushing to the hospital vs. someone just going shopping), or for any other rivalrous good.

So it's basically a way to make machines more effective agents on the owners' behalf. Whereas before any situation that required a monetary transfer in order to effectuate a mutually beneficial deal would have required the owners to negotiate directly. If the matter is too trifling, it would just be annoying and a waste of time to negotiate. Instead, have your machines do it. They couldn't do this before, not just because they weren't interconnected, but also because they have no way of transferring value to each other.

Bitcoin enables this. And the scale can be extremely small, so that even the slightest possibility of mutually beneficial trade is capitalized on.

IoT by itself enables this to happen within one's own property, like the different appliances in your own house, because no other owners are involved so no money needs to change hands. The dishwasher doesn't mind taking a 5-minute break to give extra power to another appliance that needs it. It needs no monetary compensation, because the owner owns both appliances.

It's when this kind of exchange happens with someone else, especially a total stranger, that it becomes necessary for money to change hands.

Now some people imagine this as heaven for the rich, like if for example a rich driver could flip all the red lights green. How sucky would that be if you had to wait at extra-long reds? But no. You had already preset the amount you were willing to pay in bidding for the traffic light to change, and it was far less...but more importantly you get paid for your waiting time. If it's not worth your while to wait and get paid today, just set your asking price higher (a dial just for this purpose is on your dashboard). You only wait if the other driver is offering enough to make you interested in waiting.

This guarantees that everyone benefits from the deal. If the rich driver ultimately wins out and gets the light flipped, everyone else - by hypothesis - gets at least enough money to make it worth their while. Of course the more crowded the intersection the more the rich driver would have to pay, but some will. Everyone is better off, because goods (in this case road space and right of way) are allocated most efficiently by the price system.

This argues for fixing the block size limit in a scalable way asap.  Don't wait until the protocol is embedded in an immutable chip.  Andreas has insight into some of these things, and he is under NDA and thus cannot share his reasoning for pushing so quickly.