Could The 21 Bitcoin Computer Centralize Bitcoin?
The Bitcoin startup 21 Inc., backed by venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has garnered much press attention over the release of its first product. The product, a small Linux computer wherein the Bitcoin protocol is part of the operating systems, has concerned some Bitcoin experts, who suggest the product could allow 21 Inc. to accumulate mining power. The company is excited about the product. "I'm very excited about it," said Ben Horowitz, a co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, told Wall Street Journal. "The thing that's completely missing that I think would make the Internet better....
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There has been a lot of debate on the need to centralize the bitcoin ecosystem, as this could pave the way for a more effective decision-making process for the industry. Apart from potentially enhancing oversight and having a framework to protect both companies and consumers, certain issues can also be addressed more quickly. One of these issues is that of increasing the blockchain size, which is currently hampering the speed of verification. Blocks are created every ten minutes and are limited to 1MB, which makes it difficult for the network of computers verifying the transaction. Bitcoin....
The well funded Bitcoin company, 21 inc., has released a product: The 21 Bitcoin Computer. The Bitcoin computer will allow any type of user to have full access to the Bitcoin network and comes complete as a Linux box Bitcoin ASIC miner combo. The Bitcoin Computer is a full node and will bring Bitcoin functionality far and wide. The CEO of 21.co, Balaji S. Srinivasan, explained in a Medium post: The 21 Bitcoin mining chip that is included in the Bitcoin computer itself isn’t that useful. It runs at 50-125 Gh/s and uses 0.16 Joules per Gh. Other Bitcoin ASIC miners on the market are much....
Ever since the Bitcoin computer by 21 Inc has been released, various community members have been very vocal about how expensive this device is. Especially when taking into account what the Bitcoin computer does, any owner with a Raspberry Pi 2 can replicate the concept. Or that is what one Reddit user believes, at last, although it remains to be seen whether or not this idea will work. At its core, the Bitcoin Computer created by 21 Inc seems to be nothing more than just another Raspberry Pi 2 clone with some proprietary software. The question then becomes why this Bitcoin computer should....
When is a computer not a computer? While 21 Inc.’s new computer doesn’t have keyboards, monitors, and a massive enclosed hard drive, it may have just taken Bitcoin to the next level with their new 21 Bitcoin Computer. Ok, what’s so great about this new computer by 21 Inc.? Well, it works through whatever OS you have via USB. As a stand-alone Linux machine or connected to Linux, Mac, or Windows via USB, it is small, but versatile pocket-sized computer. Most importantly, it is designed to be the first computer that is Bitcoin-optimized with native hardware and software support exclusively....
Gavin Andresen proposes a roadmap for scaling Bitcoin. On October 6, Gavin Andresen, Chief Scientist at Bitcoin Foundation proposed a roadmap for overcoming challenges to scaling Bitcoin. Andresen suggests rolling out a hard fork that increases the maximum block size limit to enable Visa scale transaction volumes of about 3,000 transactions per second. The maximum block size is currently hardcoded at 1MB enabling 7 transactions per second, and if increased would have to be carefully chosen so that anybody with a reasonably fast computer and internet connection can run a full node else we....