The 21 Bitcoin Computer is the first computer with native hardware and software support for the Bitcoin protocol according to the company that had made it – 21 Inc. That means the hardware to provide a constant stream of Bitcoin and the software to make that bitcoins useful for buying and selling digital goods and additionally developers can use the 21 Bitcoin Computer to quickly create apps, services, and devices that can be rented or bought for bitcoin.
The 21 Bitcoin Computer is a special board with an ASIC mining chip that is attached to a Raspberry Pi 2 chassis, and comes with a WiFi and power adapter, 128 GB SD card, USB-to-laptop cable, and everything you need to run it either as a standalone machine or to provide bitcoin to a Mac, Windows, or Linux computer. It comes with a full copy of the Blockchain pre-loaded on a 128GB SD card meaning that the computer will briefly synchronize with the network when you plug it in, after which point it will run as a full node by default without further intervention.
If you are interested what the dedicated ASIC chip is capable of, it seems that the 21 Bitcoin Chip has an efficiency of approximately 0.16 Joules per Gigahash and can calculate 50-125 Gigahashes per second. So apparently the focus is not only on providing you with a compact and not very powerful mining solution, but instead a device that can be used for supporting the Bitcoin network and can be used by users for offering goods or services taking payments in Bitcoin with the mining just adding a bit probably enough to cover the costs of running the hardware. You can already pre-order the 21 Bitcoin Computer for $399.99 USD and it will start shipping on November 16, 2015.
The $400 USD price tag is a bit steep if you consider the device as a Bitcoin mining-only solution due to the fact that it is not that powerful, even though it seems pretty efficient in terms of power usage even for the low hashrate it offers. It seems that was not designed to be used as a typical mining hardware like the other ASIC miners for Bitcoin, but instead the main target seem to be developers that are willing to write applications or integrate it as a part of a product or service that they are already offering as a means to integrate Bitcoin support. So miners are probably not going to be interested in the device, but developers might take some interest in this standalone solution, but it seems we’ll see what will happen in November when it hits the market.
– For additional details about the 21 Bitcoin Computer introduced by 21 Inc…
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