When HN users recommended it
3 HN users recommended this between 2015 and 2017, in 3 comments.
20072026
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
3 HN users recommended this between 2015 and 2017, in 3 comments.
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
These two comments from the /r/Bitcoin thread [1] sum it up nicely:
"So it's an overpriced SHA256 ASIC attached to a Raspberry Pi? For $400?" [2]
"I'd rather just buy $399.99 worth of Bitcoin..." [3]
EDIT: Its first-listed "feature" on Amazon [4] seems disingenuous at best:
"Buy digital goods with the constant stream of bitcoin mined by a 21 Bitcoin Chip"
especially since the makers themselves refute this in their FAQ [5]:
"Yes, you can indeed make a profit with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. However, you would do so not by directly selling bitcoin, but by selling digital goods _for_ bitcoin. That is, you are not going to get rich by immediately selling the bitcoin mined by the device for offline currency, but you can potentially do very well by selling digital goods and services to others for their bitcoin."
In other words, there will hardly be a significant "constant stream of bitcoin mined" as the tech specs [6] make clear:
"the 21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second"
At the current difficulty, that would produce somewhere between 0.01289890 and 0.03224725 bitcoins per month [7]. Even if the difficulty remained constant, it would take many years to recoup the initial $400 investment.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3lucwl/21co_websit...
[4] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C
[5] https://21.co/faq/#making-a-profit
[6] https://21.co/faq/#technical-specifications
[7] https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator
Well it's 400 dollars,* I figure "the suite of pre-configured Bitcoin-dependent software" is what hikes up the price.
1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014RD021C?camp=1789&creati...
There's a difference between giving an honest try and failing, and coming up with THIS:
https://www.amazon.com/21-INC-21BC1-Bitcoin-Computer/dp/B014...
(Yes, that IS a Raspberry Pi that they're selling for $150)