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The new "buffered mining" and predictive mining features they announced take more of the risk out of mining. Not only do they have a pool to ameliorate the vari

by toomim 11y ago

The new "buffered mining" and predictive mining features they announced take more of the risk out of mining. Not only do they have a pool to ameliorate the variance of finding a block, but they remove the risk of the difficulty varying, and even give you advance payments on mining before you've done it. By taking out all the risk, variance, and profit, 21 is step-by-step approaching a design where customers just buy bitcoin with money. Except they feel like they are mining, with a very wasteful, expensive, inefficient chip. Buying bitcoin was the right design all along. Eventually, 21 might discover this, if they can get over all the sunk costs they've invested in making mining chips without a market.

Syrup-tan 11y ago
Meta: Finally, a comment that isn't hung up on the scrolling behaviour, or the price of the mining power. It's notable the rsync.net has similar, terrible web behaviour, but we seem to have sane discussions about it's service. On topic: I think the neat part of 21 is that it seems to be a step forward in realising microtransactions, in a decentralised manner. Right now the only way around microtransactions is having a centralised pool, where you e.g. put $5/month in, and it pays services out of that pool. The problem with paying services directly is the base fees associated with transactions (for CC, it's around $0.15 + 3%, through Stripe).
- jebeng 11y ago
  How is this realizing microtransactions in a decentralized manner? Having to pay a few cents in transaction fees to get a transaction included on the Bitcoin blockchain does not seem like a great platform for true microtransactions(say <$1). 21 offers their own microtransaction service, but that's just a centralized shared wallet/ledger that offers nothing new. There are multiple centralized services where you can send someone else bitcoin. The only thing that has potential is payment channels, but I'm not sure how they are going to be implemented in a way that bypasses the Bitcoin blockchain's miner fee.

by toomim 11y ago

Syrup-tan 11y ago

Meta: Finally, a comment that isn't hung up on the scrolling behaviour, or the price of the mining power. It's notable the rsync.net has similar, terrible web behaviour, but we seem to have sane discussions about it's service. On topic: I think the neat part of 21 is that it seems to be a step forward in realising microtransactions, in a decentralised manner. Right now the only way around microtransactions is having a centralised pool, where you e.g. put $5/month in, and it pays services out of that pool. The problem with paying services directly is the base fees associated with transactions (for CC, it's around $0.15 + 3%, through Stripe).

jebeng 11y ago
How is this realizing microtransactions in a decentralized manner? Having to pay a few cents in transaction fees to get a transaction included on the Bitcoin blockchain does not seem like a great platform for true microtransactions(say <$1). 21 offers their own microtransaction service, but that's just a centralized shared wallet/ledger that offers nothing new. There are multiple centralized services where you can send someone else bitcoin. The only thing that has potential is payment channels, but I'm not sure how they are going to be implemented in a way that bypasses the Bitcoin blockchain's miner fee.