The coolest bitcoin company in the world launches a mining computer

The company has a very cool name, 21, and what’s even cooler is that it raised $100 million from giants like Cisco and Qualcomm when it was first founded in the first half of 2015. Previous Bitcoin startups all looked very grassroots and loser.

After raising $100 million, 21 announced a very cool strategic plan. They claim to create a mining chip with strong computing power and low power consumption, which can be embedded in all devices that can be connected to the Internet, such as computer motherboards, routers, and smartphones, making full use of the idle power of these devices to engage in Bitcoin mining.

Although some people in the Bitcoin community joked that 21's strategy was to "steal electricity to mine", I think this mining method is green and environmentally friendly, and it is also quite cool. At least it is much cooler than those local tycoons who went to remote mountainous areas to build simple sheds and use bulky mining machines to mine.

According to the Wall Street Journal, after more than half a year of being public, 21's chips seem to have matured, and it has finally launched a mining computer - 21 Bitcoin Computer. This product consists of a Raspberry Pi computer (a Linux computer the size of a business card) and a mining module equipped with 21's mining chips, in addition to small accessories such as wireless network cards and flash memory cards.

The 21 Bitcoin computer is smaller than a roll of toilet paper when all its components are assembled together, but it has quite a complete set of functions, and can work independently by plugging in an Internet cable or connecting to WiFi, without the need to connect to a computer. According to 21 company investor Ben Horowitz, in addition to mining Bitcoin, the 21 Bitcoin computer can also conduct some transactions based on virtual currency, such as setting up an online store for shopping with Bitcoin, or directly using Bitcoin for cross-border payments.

Obviously, the function of 21 Bitcoin Computer is no longer limited to the traditional Bitcoin mining machine. However, for miners, the most important thing is mining performance. According to 21 Company, the mining power of 21 Bitcoin Computer is between 50GH/s and 125GH/s, and its energy consumption ratio is about 0.17 joules/GH. According to today's mining difficulty and currency price, it is really insignificant to mine 60 cents to 1.5 yuan worth of Bitcoin every day; however, its energy consumption ratio is surprisingly low, because the current mainstream mining machine is about 0.6 joules/GH.

The 21 Bitcoin computer is expected to be launched in November at a price of $400. In terms of cost performance, it is far inferior to the mining machines used by the local tycoons in China, but from the perspective of the decentralization of Bitcoin, it has important significance. Because of the low Bitcoin market and the sharp increase in mining difficulty, Bitcoin mining has now been concentrated in a few large mining farms, which is completely contrary to the original idea of ​​the founder Satoshi Nakamoto. Now, it is time for some fresh blood to appear.