The most expensive and most secretive bitcoin startup 21 has found a new way to use their bitcoin miners. They recommend to connect to it climate sensors and sell received data to interested parties.

According to instructions published on 21 Inc website, to turn a bitcoin miner into a factory of saleable data you need a 21 Computer, barometer/ altimeter, breakout board, four wires, a protective case for all these devices (which can be 3D-printed by users), and, as you can guess, connection to the Internet.

21 Inc provides users with a detailed guide on how to link these elements together and set them up using a code the company published on the website. After the installation, the 21 Computer will start collecting air pressure and temperature data and send it over to the company’s database.

Third parties may be interested in buying this data in the aggregated form from 21 servers and pay barometer/altimeter owners in bitcoin. Potential buyers may have the need “to measure barometric pressure and temperature from multiple locations.”

The developer points out that cashing in the “pressure data” is not the only way to use 21 Computers:

“We hope this tutorial will inspire and help guide you to develop your bitcoin-payable hardware applications.”

The marketplace for pressure measuring through a network of bitcoin mining devices is the most recent development of 21. About a year ago it attracted the attention of the bitcoin community after having secured over $40 million of investment. In May 2015, they finally unveiled their invention to the public. A group of former MIT students developed a device allowing you to turn any electronic device into a bitcoin miner.

“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.”

As it became clear one year later, some applications are ready to be used providing both precise pressure data and some bitcoins for 21 Computer owners.

Roman Korizky