7 ms·

21.co Bitcoin Computer Now on Sale

47 points by dmvaldman 11y ago

omgmog 11y ago
The scrolling behaviour on that page is infuriating.
- api 11y ago
  Someone needs to go around beating designers who mess with scroll.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    That's what HackerNews is for
  - fivesigma 11y ago
    They should be forced to work on an old Windows XP laptop with a tiny trackpad for a month.
- basseq 11y ago
  I'll dissent here: I like it. It's different from the default behavior and took a moment to get used to, but I much prefer this to the parallax-esque behavior I see more commonly. This mimics a swipe very well. Though worth noting that I scroll with two fingers on a touch pad, so it turns into very much a physical swipe. The UX is definitely different, but it works for me.
  - octref 11y ago
    I think he's complaining about this page sometimes registers your slight scroll-down as scroll-up and goes up a screen.
    - basseq 11y ago
      Ah, interesting. Hadn't encountered that.
  - callumlocke 11y ago
    I like it too, when it works. It's a nice clean swipe thing. But it goes in the opposite direction for me about 30% of the time. (Using two-finger scroll on a Macbook Pro trackpad.)
- atonparker 11y ago
  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.
  - antihero 11y ago
    It takes control away from the user and breaks the default scroll behaviour. It's frustrating and annoying and I instantly feel at odds with any company that uses it. Also has the tendency to glitch out on trackpads and go past where I want it to.
  - lojack 11y ago
    I have a tendency to scroll while I am reading. This made it so the first section, which I had not yet finished reading scrolled out of view. I scrolled back up and had to re-look for my place and instinctively scrolled down again losing my place again. Took strong will to give up scrolling and read each slide completely before moving on. Deviates significantly from a normal user experience and results in a jarring experience for me personally.
  - mbrock 11y ago
    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.
lukasm 11y ago
The landing page doesn't explain why do I need it.
- nathancahill 11y ago
  It's like one of those startup generators that mashes up buzz words to create a company. IoT + Bitcoin = $121M funding.
- myth_buster 11y ago
  I think they brief on it in the 6th slide "Free, as in Free Market" https://21.co/learn/21-marketplace/#overview https://21.co/learn/21-marketplace/#overview
oxalo 11y ago
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?
- newobj 11y ago
  Good question. Not too long now: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&show...
- marcell 11y ago
  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&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=1year&sh...
- austenallred 11y ago
  Related question: How much will a 256 GB SD card cost when we reach that level?
minimaxir 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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
  - powera 11y ago
    I don't think it's anything other than a bunch of marketing gobbledygook designed to get people to overpay for a computer.
    - NobleSir 11y ago
      meh, if I wanted to run a full bitcoin node (for example, so I don't have to rely on Coinbase or spv wallets) with minimal hassle(sp?) on a new computer, it would save me some time / effort and presumably run in the background with minimal annoyance - my view is that it's aimed at the experienced and frequent user of bitcoin rather than those who think of "blockchain" and "bitcoin" as a marketing buzzword
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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.
wittgenstein 11y ago
I don't really understand why anyone would buy this.
- drcode 11y ago
  Speaking as someone who's written a book on Bitcoin, I don't either.
roymurdock 11y ago
>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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    The better question is why not just use the bitcoin testnet? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
  - ssharp 11y ago
    Couldn't they have just used software to emulate the steady stream of Bitcoin that this thing produces? The inclusion of the miner and it's subsequent price tag (over what a normal Pi costs) makes it seem ridiculous. If their endgame is to create a mining chip that can be realistically put into devices, they'd better figure out a much better form factor for it as well.
btym 11y ago
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.
amix 11y ago
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.
lumberjack 11y ago
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-distributed-mining https://21.co/learn/21-mining/#redecentralizing-bitcoin-with... ------ 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 11y ago
  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.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mbesto 11y ago
> 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?
fivesigma 11y ago
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.
chx 11y ago
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?
tomlongson 11y ago
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?
giaour 11y ago
Wow, that is an unfortunate heat-sink-to-computer size ratio.
seibelj 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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+contracts%22 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=bitcoin+%22smart+con...
astaroth360 11y ago
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 11y ago
  It can be done on your home computer, with the bitcoin testnet, for free.

47 points by dmvaldman 11y ago

omgmog 11y ago

The scrolling behaviour on that page is infuriating.

api 11y ago
Someone needs to go around beating designers who mess with scroll.
- austenallred 11y ago
  That's what HackerNews is for
- fivesigma 11y ago
  They should be forced to work on an old Windows XP laptop with a tiny trackpad for a month.
basseq 11y ago
I'll dissent here: I like it. It's different from the default behavior and took a moment to get used to, but I much prefer this to the parallax-esque behavior I see more commonly. This mimics a swipe very well. Though worth noting that I scroll with two fingers on a touch pad, so it turns into very much a physical swipe. The UX is definitely different, but it works for me.
- octref 11y ago
  I think he's complaining about this page sometimes registers your slight scroll-down as scroll-up and goes up a screen.
  - basseq 11y ago
    Ah, interesting. Hadn't encountered that.
- callumlocke 11y ago
  I like it too, when it works. It's a nice clean swipe thing. But it goes in the opposite direction for me about 30% of the time. (Using two-finger scroll on a Macbook Pro trackpad.)
atonparker 11y ago
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.
- antihero 11y ago
  It takes control away from the user and breaks the default scroll behaviour. It's frustrating and annoying and I instantly feel at odds with any company that uses it. Also has the tendency to glitch out on trackpads and go past where I want it to.
- lojack 11y ago
  I have a tendency to scroll while I am reading. This made it so the first section, which I had not yet finished reading scrolled out of view. I scrolled back up and had to re-look for my place and instinctively scrolled down again losing my place again. Took strong will to give up scrolling and read each slide completely before moving on. Deviates significantly from a normal user experience and results in a jarring experience for me personally.
- mbrock 11y ago
  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.

lukasm 11y ago

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

nathancahill 11y ago
It's like one of those startup generators that mashes up buzz words to create a company. IoT + Bitcoin = $121M funding.
myth_buster 11y ago
I think they brief on it in the 6th slide "Free, as in Free Market" https://21.co/learn/21-marketplace/#overview https://21.co/learn/21-marketplace/#overview

oxalo 11y ago

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?

newobj 11y ago
Good question. Not too long now: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&show...
marcell 11y ago
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&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=1year&sh...
austenallred 11y ago
Related question: How much will a 256 GB SD card cost when we reach that level?

minimaxir 11y ago

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 11y ago
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
- powera 11y ago
  I don't think it's anything other than a bunch of marketing gobbledygook designed to get people to overpay for a computer.
  - NobleSir 11y ago
    meh, if I wanted to run a full bitcoin node (for example, so I don't have to rely on Coinbase or spv wallets) with minimal hassle(sp?) on a new computer, it would save me some time / effort and presumably run in the background with minimal annoyance - my view is that it's aimed at the experienced and frequent user of bitcoin rather than those who think of "blockchain" and "bitcoin" as a marketing buzzword
- minimaxir 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.

wittgenstein 11y ago

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

drcode 11y ago
Speaking as someone who's written a book on Bitcoin, I don't either.

roymurdock 11y ago

>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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  The better question is why not just use the bitcoin testnet? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
- ssharp 11y ago
  Couldn't they have just used software to emulate the steady stream of Bitcoin that this thing produces? The inclusion of the miner and it's subsequent price tag (over what a normal Pi costs) makes it seem ridiculous. If their endgame is to create a mining chip that can be realistically put into devices, they'd better figure out a much better form factor for it as well.

btym 11y ago

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.

amix 11y ago

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.

lumberjack 11y ago

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-distributed-mining https://21.co/learn/21-mining/#redecentralizing-bitcoin-with... ------ 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 11y ago
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.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mbesto 11y ago

> 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?

fivesigma 11y ago

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.

chx 11y ago

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?

tomlongson 11y ago

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?

giaour 11y ago

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

seibelj 11y ago

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 11y ago
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+contracts%22 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=bitcoin+%22smart+con...

astaroth360 11y ago

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 11y ago
It can be done on your home computer, with the bitcoin testnet, for free.