Company Name: hitbit
founder: Alex Bossarov
Establishment date: April 2020
Headquarters location: far
Number of employees: 25
Website: https://heatbit.com/
Public or private? private
In early 2020, Alex Bossarov was stuck in his apartment in Shanghai during the coronavirus outbreak. To soothe his boredom, he asked to use the Antminer S9, a Bitcoin mining machine, to play with.
After plugging it in, he quickly learned two things: Bitcoin miners are annoying and they run hot.
While Busarov saw the former byproduct as an inconvenience, he viewed the latter as an opportunity.
Fast forward to the present day, and Busarov and his team are preparing holiday shipments of quietly operating Bitcoin miners that act as space heaters (as well as air purifiers) — his company’s flagship product. hitbit.
Moreover, Busarov created a product that helps decentralize the Bitcoin hash rate, which has become dangerously centralized.
“The first kind of value I saw in this was how it could use energy to heat your house and mine Bitcoin at the same time, but then the mission started to evolve as I realized the importance of decentralization in Bitcoin mining,” Busarov told Bitcoin. magazine. “I believe we are enabling a more flexible infrastructure for Bitcoin to operate.”
How Heatbit devices work
Heatbit devices are 24 inches high and 8 inches in diameter. It is cylindrical in shape and has an elegant finish.
Getting started with the Heatbit is “about as difficult as plugging in a Dyson,” says Busarov.
After doing that, users just need to download the Heatbit app and connect the device to a WiFi network to start mining Bitcoin.
Once the device is powered up, using no more power than a Dyson space heater and making no noise more than a whisper-sized hum, it directs the hashing power it produces to a virtual mining pool, which is now NiceHash and soon to be the shortest. Users will also eventually be able to choose their own mining pool or mine Bitcoin blocks without being part of the pool if they wish.
“Basically, you can start without knowing what a mining pool is,” Busarov explained. “But once you learn more or if you already know about mining pools, simply enter the details of the mining pool you want to join, or mine solo.”
Busarov explained that the function of choosing your mining pool or individual mining has not been enabled for all users yet, but it will be in the near future.
“We have no intention of restricting users to a specific group,” he said.
If the machine was running 24/7, it would mine approximately 700 sessions per day, which equates to about 20,000 sessions per month – about $20 per month according to the price of Bitcoin at the time of writing.
The earned bitcoins are held in a smart contract until the amount reaches a certain threshold (which currently ranges between $10 and $20 in Bitcoin) before being deposited into the user’s wallet address on the Bitcoin main chain.
Busarov realizes that some users are concerned about Bitcoin’s high fees, which is why he and his team are working on a Lightning implementation.
“Lightning is definitely coming,” Busarov said. “It’s not enabled yet, but it’s coming.”
Decentralization of insects
As Busarov mentioned, his original intention was not to create Heatbit hardware to contribute to the decentralization of Bitcoin’s hash rate. However, once he started thinking about how central it was in some ways, he recognized this deeper dimension of Heatbit’s value proposition.
“When you have five big mining companies and 20 known mining sites, if you want to destroy Bitcoin, you know those 20 sites, right?” Busarov warned.
Regarding the risk of major mining companies going bankrupt, Busarov added: “Also, if the price of Bitcoin drops too much, which sometimes happens, and mining companies are over-leveraged, they may not exist anymore.”
“But people will continue to use geysers, because they are not spending any extra money mining that way. They will continue to use miners because they are not losing any money, making it the cheapest way to mine.”
At first glance, Busarov’s claim that the home miners he created could play a legitimate role in supporting the Bitcoin network seems a bit exaggerated, especially given the fact that the amount of hashes currently produced by Heatbit hardware is minuscule compared to the amount produced by major mining companies. produces.
However, when one takes into account the size of the home heating market, Busarov’s assertion seems more plausible.
“There are about 200 million electric heaters sold every year,” Busarov said, referring to a market Heatbit is looking to capture in the long term.
However, in the short term, Busarov realizes that buyers in this market don’t necessarily have the money to buy a heater like the Heatbit, which retails for $799.
“Most people aren’t going to buy an $800 heater,” he explained. “We’re looking to create an affordable version so we can sell more.”
However, the prioritization of affordability has given way to an emphasis on quality and timeliness. Busarov and his team have put all their efforts into creating a durable, reliable device that can be charged quickly.
Built to last, ready to ship
The current iteration of Heatbit devices is the result of a tremendous amount of research and development as well as sourcing high-quality replacement parts from over 70 different suppliers.
In other words, Bossarov and his team have built a device that can take a beating. (This doesn’t mean you should beat up your Heatbit; we don’t condone abuse of your home Bitcoin mining rig/home heater here at Bitcoin Magazine.)
“Today, I was doing some hardware testing for the latest batch,” Bossarov said.
“I put one in the box and was literally throwing it away. I was throwing it away like UPS or FedEx does, and I took it out to find it wasn’t broken,” he added.
Busarov shared this information with a smile, half of which seemed to be born of my reaction to his account of how he tested the flexibility of his products and half of which was derived from the confidence many in the Bitcoin community had come to have.
“When we started construction, it took longer than expected,” Busarov explained, adding that he and his team were working under pressure because customers had pre-ordered the devices.
“Some people would complain about a delay in shipping and ask for a refund, and we did refund the money, but then a lot of people said, ‘Hey guys, you’re doing great.’ We believe in you. Keep it up,” he added.
“When people say something like that to you, you can’t stop. When there’s so much trust and confidence that people put in you, it gives you a lot of energy and motivation to keep going.
Busarov and his team kept pushing forward, eventually creating a reliable product that is now ready to ship a lot.
HitBit future
Busarov hopes that when major home appliance companies see what Heatbit has created, they will become interested in building similar products.
“I think once we show that this is possible, more companies will turn to it,” he said.
“It’s going to get really interesting when companies like Dyson, Samsung and major electronics companies start looking into this,” he added.
“Imagine Samsung starting to produce home appliances — not necessarily space heaters — but other home appliances that are mining on a large scale.”
Busarov has also been monitoring developments in the open source Bitcoin mining movement, and has been in contact with one of its leaders: Scott, the founder of Bitaxe. He’s looking at what he might be able to incorporate from that movement, while remaining cognizant of the fact that he’s building a consumer product where safety is paramount.
“I really like the open source Bitcoin mining movement, and I hope we can contribute to it,” Busarov said.
“However, we have to be careful, because heaters consume a lot of energy and playing with them can be dangerous for people,” he added.
As a final thought, Busarov reiterated that he does not believe he is simply building an innovative product for the average consumer, but that Heatbit is playing a role in shaping the future of Bitcoin mining.
He explained, “Bitcoin mining will not be limited to these huge warehouses that use large amounts of energy, and then these major companies will have to sell the Bitcoin that they mine to pay for the energy they use and their operational costs.” “With home mining, you don’t have to sell any of the bitcoins you earn.”