BitFury, a Bitcoin technology company operating out of Amsterdam and San Francisco is now a step closer to the integration of Bitcoin technology into the Internet of Things with a light bulb. Still in the prototype state, this novel lightbulb done more than just emit light. It can mine Bitcoin as well. This new smart bulb was unravelled at the recently concluded Blockchain summit held in Necker Island.
The Blockchain Summit was organized by Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. According to BitFury, they have been working on the prototype smart light bulb for over a year now and the prototype unveiled during the event was apparently the third iteration of the prototype. The company plans to fix the build soon and start the distribution of these light bulbs by the end of this year.
The technology behind these light bulbs and the specification of these products are still not available yet (at least we don’t know about it). But if it is in any way similar to the approach 21 Inc. is taking to create mining devices out of everyday household equipment, then we can expect an embedded chip similar to that of 21’s BitShare chips that connects to the home or office internet network.
READ MORE: 21 Targets IoT with Its BitShare Embedded Mining Chips
BitFury plans to follow a four phased approach to launch these smart bulbs in the market. The first phase invites various launch ideas from the community. It will be followed by opening up the development platform for developers in the form of SDKs. The company plans to encourage the developers to work on their proposals for improving and/or finding different applications for these smart bulbs. The third phase involves building a support infrastructure for these developers. Out of all the projects, BitFury will select the best prototypes and market them in the final roll-out phase.
BitFury currently has dozens of prototype smart bulbs built and it will be expanding the production soon. With BitFury already there in the market and 21 Inc. following them closely with their BitShare chips, we can soon expect the competition in the Bitcoin of IoT market to heat up. Not to forget Samsung and IBM, we still don’t know what they are building secretly in their stables.