
21.co Bitcoin Computer Now on Sale - dmvaldman
https://21.co/
======
roymurdock
_> The 21 Bitcoin Computer consumes 15W (5V @3A) and has an efficiency of
approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and arrives configured to calculate at
a rate of approximately 50 Gigahashes per second._

So taking the computer's price of $400 and using this calculator [1] w/ the
current difficulty level, 50 Gigahashes/s, 15W consumption, 5% pool
commission, $0.15 $/kW energy costs, and the current exchange rate of
$332USD/BTC we get:

$0.07 in daily revenue or

5714 days (15.6 years) to breakeven assuming constant difficulty and current
exchange rate levels.

\---

 _> Please note: the satoshis you mine provide a source of readily-available
bitcoin for application development, but are not intended to be used for
investment purposes._

I wonder if they included this disclaimer because the 21 Bitcoin computer will
never generate a profit, or because of some other legal barrier? Either way,
they should stick "NOT AN EFFICIENT MINING DEVICE, SOLELY FOR DEVELOPMENT
PURPOSES" at the top of their description instead of dancing around the issue,
making it seem like they're hoping to lure naive miners into purchasing the
device.

[1] [http://www.alcula.com/calculators/finance/bitcoin-
mining/](http://www.alcula.com/calculators/finance/bitcoin-mining/)

~~~
dmix
They aren't selling this as a self-financing investment so the ROI from BTC
alone is not entirely relevant. The value prop is to get access to bitcoins
and the network for development purposes, if I'm not mistaken.

The better question might be is this a problem people are willing to spend
$400 to solve?

~~~
grubles
The better question is why not just use the bitcoin testnet?

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet)

------
chx
I Googled cloud mining and found [https://www.genesis-
mining.com/pricing](https://www.genesis-mining.com/pricing) this page where I
can buy 50 GH/s in the cloud for $22.49. Why would I want this local for 18
times the price?

------
amix
I fail to see why embedding bitcoin inside hardware is a smart idea,
especially given that most of the world are moving towards mobile devices
where battery life and storage are super important.

I can see this would make payments more decentralized, but how much do regular
users or developers care about decentralized systems? Most of the world
depends on highly centralized systems, including the decentralized protocols
such as email or the Internet itself.

------
fivesigma
They should remove bullshit claims like "provides you with a constant stream
of Bitcoins". People might actually think that this is a miner, which it
really isn't. It is the equivalent of digging for gold with a rusty spoon. You
could spend 10 times less on an exchange and that would provide you with a
bigger "stream of Bitcoins" than what this thing could make in a year.

------
seibelj
This company has _121 MILLION_ in funding [1]. Can this possibly be true? Why
would I need my refrigerator to mine bitcoin?

[1]
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/21e6#/entity)

~~~
MacsHeadroom
Because Bitcoin isn't money. It's a contract and notary system. A single
satoshi can be used to publicly and programmatically set, satisfy, and extend
a private contract in whole or part. The potential applications of this
technology are mind blowing. Smart contracts are Bitcoin's killer app. Most
people just don't know it yet.

The way 21 is positioned on this page is (I'd say poor) marketing meant to
sell these devices to developers who aren't yet sold on the next thing in
Bitcoin (i.e. smart contracts). The story told on this page and the roadmap
they're showing investors is completely different. Just wait.

[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=bitcoin+%22smart+con...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=bitcoin+%22smart+contracts%22)

------
lukasm
The landing page doesn't explain why do I need it.

~~~
nathancahill
It's like one of those startup generators that mashes up buzz words to create
a company. IoT + Bitcoin = $121M funding.

------
btym
What is the point of this? If they want to get merchants started, offer a
"starter kit" download. If they want to offer a miner, this thing would take
15.6 years minimum to pay for itself.

------
astaroth360
So, yeah, this product is a bit confusing until you realize it's just meant to
be for application development. The whole idea is to build services that
people will pay you for, that are served off of your personal 21.co machine,
that or to purchase the services that are being offered. The mining bit is
just meant to give you a small stream of bitcoin to mess around with.

This could all be done with your own server or whatever, the 21.co machine
just makes setup easier.

~~~
grubles
It can be done on your home computer, with the bitcoin testnet, for free.

------
tomlongson
None of my BTC friends understand who this product is for.

You can develop for Bitcoin either by a) using chain.com or blockchain.info or
b) by installing Bitcoin on your computer and waiting for the blockchain to
sync.

Can anyone explain why one would want this?

------
mbesto
> _Developers use it to build bitcoin-payable apps and services._

I'm confused as to what problem this is actually solving. I thought I could
build bitcoin-payable apps using my laptop?

------
oxalo
Says it comes with a 128 GB SD card with the current blockchain. How long
until a copy of the full blockchain is > 128 GB?

~~~
marcell
Historical data [1] shows 25GB annual growth, and currently the blockchain is
around 50GB, so that gives us an expected 3 years.

Current max theoretical is ~50GB annual, if every block is the max 1MB. There
is an ongoing debate about whether to increase the max block size.

[1] [https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-
size?timespan=1year&sh...](https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-
size?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=)

------
minimaxir
I like how the price and CPU power, the two most important aspects of a
Bitcoin miner, are not listed anywhere on the page, forcing a click to the
Amazon page where customers are likely to be disappointed.

"Growth hacking" has become very annoying lately.

~~~
Osiris
I don't think this is designed to be a dedicated miner. It looks like it's
just designed to facilitate transactions through an API.

> It is designed for developers to easily build Bitcoin-payable apps, services
> and devices

~~~
minimaxir
The promo page explicitly states that the device provides "a constantly
replenished source of Bitcoin." Looking at the clock speed on Amazon shows
that the device is barely powerful enough to generate enough Bitcoin to offset
the energy cost.

~~~
Karunamon
The Amazon page clearly calls out the amount of bitcoin generated as "small"
and "for development purposes".

 _The 21 Bitcoin Computer is the first computer with native hardware and
software support for the Bitcoin protocol. That means the hardware to mine a
stream of small amounts of bitcoin for development purposes, and the software
to make that bitcoin useful for buying and selling digital goods._

 _Developers use the 21 Bitcoin Computer to quickly add Bitcoin-based
monetization to any app, service, or device. Please note: the satoshis you
mine provide a source of readily-available bitcoin for application
development, but are not intended to be used for investment purposes._

A legitimate use case. This isn't intended as a serious miner (they're calling
out satoshis, which is the smallest divisible unit of a coin, a hundredth of a
millionth, with a USD value of a 3 millionths of a penny) and isn't sold as
one.

~~~
tveita
They could probably preload it with more bitcoins than this device is likely
to mine in its lifetime for the same cost.

It stumps me why they'd include the miner at all, but they may be trying to
pivot from the miner as their main product. My impression from their press
releases was that they were aiming more at crazy IoT things like embedding
miners into household objects.

------
giaour
Wow, that is an unfortunate heat-sink-to-computer size ratio.

------
omgmog
The scrolling behaviour on that page is infuriating.

~~~
atonparker
What infuriated you about it? It isn't a smooth scroll, sure, but it suits the
content. I get much more annoyed by sites that try maintain smooth scrolling
while still presenting "slides" of information. Then you spend 80% of the time
scrolling through useless transitions. This site felt pretty easy to consume.

~~~
mbrock
It made me leave the website almost immediately, despite being somewhat
interested. It's not usable for me on a totally standard MacBook Air, because
as soon as I even touch the trackpad, the website decides to scroll _up_ a
whole page, when of course I wanted to scroll _down_.

I'm not interested in fighting with ridiculous scrolling games. If they don't
care about testing their ridiculous scrolling plugins, I don't care about
their product.

Sometimes I reach out to companies on Twitter or email telling them to please
disable their weird scrolling effects. Nobody seems to care. I conclude that
this behavior signifies a company that doesn't care about user experience.

By now I'm a little curious about these things, so I did a simple test of
starting at the top and trying to scroll down to read the rest of the page. I
can't find _any way_ to consistently scroll to the third page. Just touching
the touchpad on the second page causes an upwards scroll, even when I'm _very_
obviously trying to scroll down.

~~~
atonparker
Sounds like a lot of the complaints are from trackpad users. I guess the site
developers were too lazy to test on more devices than their dev stations.

~~~
mbrock
Yeah, I don't doubt that it works fine with a single event from a mouse wheel.

------
wittgenstein
I don't really understand why anyone would buy this.

~~~
drcode
Speaking as someone who's written a book on Bitcoin, I don't either.

------
lumberjack
Very flashy but overall bad web design. What should be on the frontpage as the
first thing the user sees is hidden, three actions away:

[https://21.co/learn/21-mining/#redecentralizing-bitcoin-
with...](https://21.co/learn/21-mining/#redecentralizing-bitcoin-with-
distributed-mining)

\------

Regarding the product. I don't see why developers need to develop using actual
bitcoins so I don't buy that spiel. There's alternative testing blockchains
for a reason.

It seems to me like they are simply trying to become one of the dominant
mining pool players. I don't see how they increase mining pool
decentralization. All other mining devices are not tied to one mining pool.
Their's is.

~~~
astaroth360
There are millions of dollars invested in this project, I highly doubt that
the entire goal is to have a massive mining pool.

The main idea is to buy and sell digital good and services, that's the big
revolutionary bit of this, not some mining pool scam.

