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21.co, a bitcoin startup that attracted more than $40 million of investment, finally shared the information about their invention with the public. A group of former MIT students developed a device that allows you to turn any object into a bitcoin miner.

According to the article on Medium, the name of the new device is BitShare:

“The 21 BitShare can be embedded into an internet-connected device as a standalone chip or integrated into an existing chipset as a block of IP to generate a continuous stream of digital currency for use in a wide variety of applications.”

Developers state that BitShare can make people rich but not just that. The new device can be used for several other purposes:
-    Processing of micropayments (using the chip effectively as a wallet)
-    Authentication (the chip sends some satoshi to a certain address and this works as a password)
-    Blockchain writing (21.com developers called it Machine Twitter)
-    Sharing profits between two or three parties (some satoshi will go to the retailer, some to the chip maker)
-    Solutions for the developing world

The authors of the invention position their project as a radical innovation on the bitcoin market.

“Conceptually, we believe that embedded mining will ultimately establish bitcoin as a fundamental system resource on par with CPU, bandwidth, hard drive space, and RAM. That is, one can imagine the ultimate thin client in which a system designer consciously chooses a relatively slow CPU but a relatively strong 21 mining chip, using the bitcoin generated therein to purchase computation in the cloud.”

The young team of developers says that it has already built a whole new line of products based on their chip. This line includes reference devices, datasheets, a cloud service and software protocols. In the text, 21.com also hints at partnership with many firms on the bitcoin market “from small startups to multibillion dollar hardware companies”.
21 Inc., a USA-based startup, grasped the attention of the bitcoin community at the beginning of 2015. It attracted record investment from venture funds including Cisco and Quallcom. Managing partner of Andreesen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz became a board member of the young company.

In May 2015, the bitcoin community discussed rumours that 21 Inc suggested to integrate a bitcoin processor into every toaster. Now developers explained themselves to the public:

“If you are an electrical engineer, chip designer, hardware designer, or otherwise interested in what the 21 chip can do for you, please sign up on our website to request a dev kit.”