Greetings Bitcoin!
I say that because taking Good MORNING Bitcoin would be outright theft of Mad’s Stilow; but I agree with the similar sentiment. Bitcoin isn’t just a technology used, or a store of value for holding your ‘not in my wallet’ money. IT’S ALSO A COMMUNITY of strong, awesome, some neckbeared (disclaimer, I do have a neckbeard :0 ) , others not, individuals who are great to themselves and great to each other! So I come to you today, with the hot topic bitcoin news of the week: 21 Inc. For those of you tuning into this blog for the first time or haven’t been following along bitcoin lately, 21 Inc. is a new bitcoin startup that has been secretly acquiring funding over the past 16 months and has just recently disclosed that they have raised a whopping $116 Million in funding to create ‘the next big thing’ for all things bitcoin.
To be honest, it’s very interesting how a stealth startup like 21 Inc was able to raise such a large amount over that course of time, particularly considering that Bitcoin value has been slumping downward since January 2014 and continues to perform sluggishly since initially raising capital back in November 2013 when Mt. Gox had artificially inflated the price to that point. So for 21 Inc. to rise from those ashes and continue to proceed and bolster investment capital afterward means that their team must REALLY have something amazing that can contribute towards a high ROI. This post actually began as a simple copy/paste of an earlier answer I posted on Zapchain, where the Poster had asked: Does 21 Inc now become the Market Leader after raising all that capital? (the TL;DR answer is NO, by the way) I knew that I had wanted to write on the subject though as bit bitcoin startups are always exciting to the community, so without further adieu, the findings:
Lets analyze the period of fundraising. From November 2013 at the height of the 2nd bubble to now, 21inc has been able to raising a whopping 100 million dollars, not from anyone, but from cut-throat, money hungry investors. Its not like they pulled a BFL or an Avalon Batch2 Chips Pre-ORDER, They had to be prepared with forecasting, multi-faceted business models and paradigm shifting ‘vision’ to secure capital, from these investors.
Based on the Job descriptions, there is going to be a hardware and software offering. There will be client side and server side based products which means the end-user is expected to interact with 21inc (as per their business model) post purchase. I know for certain that they are offering embedded devices, a cloud based service, an external publicly facing API, and Bitcoin Mining as well. These are FACT based on their various posted job descriptions.
Combined with the large initial investment from ROI driven investment, I feel like 21 Inc is positioning itself as a product and service that can pay back to its users, either through participation within the service or through acquisition of the goods 21 Inc will produce (embedded microdevices to full functioning datacenters with 28 NM and lower asic chips (to mine btc most likely)
I could be completely off base here, but my imagination tells me they plan to offer a participatory social network with devices that can be purchased. These devices will generate bitcoin passively like a wrist watch with kinetic energy that mines bitcoin through human power. By having a server based model, they also either plan to offer a network of participants or maybe seamless integration to another existing wallet provider. Maybe they are creating devices that allow BTC conscious consumers to identify themselves and other businesses who cater to BTC spending and thus offer a seamless solution to promote (like as a consumer, I want to buy XYZ food in BTC and now with a social network I share these concerns, the Owner of XYZ food implements BTC and now I the original consumer get rewarded for bringing XYZ food into the network…)
