Quote from: smooth on May 20, 2015, 01:00:25 AM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on May 20, 2015, 12:49:42 AM

How can we have a meaningful discussion if you pigeonhole to the irrelevant factors only.

This is not about energy efficiency. You argued very hard that is it about efficiency (energy or otherwise).

Simple, someone asked about efficiency, and whether cheap chips in a water heater, toaster, etc. can compete with cutting edge mining chips. I answered. The answer is yes.

That may be irrelevant to you, but it was relevant to the person who asked.

His question was not asking about energy efficiency, but rather what is the holistic point of it all. And he is correct that the energy efficiency is scam. The real goal is enslavement of the developing world by loaning a smartphone in exchange for unnoticed electricity usage.

Quote from: phoenix1 on May 19, 2015, 10:38:32 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on May 19, 2015, 09:08:35 PM

Quote from: Peter R on May 19, 2015, 09:06:30 PM

Quote from: rpietila on May 19, 2015, 08:35:48 PM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on May 19, 2015, 08:21:03 PM

And this is a critical point. If you can move the worlds CPUs into your coin decentralized, you can beat Bitcoin because you can move more hardware value into your coin. Especially if you can give the mined morsels to be so small that no one sells and they instead circulate those morsels on a use-case that Bitcoin can't do.

+1

This is exactly what 21 Inc. will be doingadding bitcoin miners to devices like cellphones, thereby giving "mined morsels" to potentially millions of new devices. I'm very excited to see how this plays out!

yeah, i thought of that too.

i think it's going to be a huge win.

Ok, perhaps you can help me understand, as I am really stuck on this one. Is it possible for a toaster/phone + mining chip to be as/more efficient than the best ASIC's on the market, and if it is not, how can this be a cost-efficient way to mine? I get that the network effect of so many devices mining would be hugely beneficial for BTC, and the 'free BTC' could be a PR/adoption coup, but is there a 'sleight of hand' going on here? Will consumers be receiving what they perceive as 'free BTC' through their toasters or phones, but in reality end up paying more than the market rate for BTC due to the higher electricity costs of running/charging these devices? Surely a toaster-miner has to be more expensive to use than a regular toaster, even if only at the margin, where it is not noticed as a small increase in the electricity bill.
In a market economy the most cost-efficient mining ought to win out, but this seems like a possible (intentional) way to 'distort' that.
Apologies if I am missing something completely obvious

EDIT: Also, as I understand it, a percentage of these mined morsels will go directly to 21Inc, making them yet more expensive for Joe Public.
It almost seems like a legal mining bot-net