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Back in the days of Bitcoin mining there was talk of turning toasters or other electronic devices into Bitcoin mining machines, but that doesn't seem like a good idea anymore having that it requires lots of power and very low ROI having to run it as a node by itself.

My question is, has there been any discussions or projects that use a Proof-of-Stake coin or system integrated into another internet connected device? I'm not talking about just setting up a raspberry pi and installing a POS node onto it and leaving it to mine.

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The use of other devices to mine bitcoin probably came from the desire to do something useful with the heat that mining creates. It takes a lot of energy to slow cook a pot of chili, so the thought was that instead of using traditional heating elements, use SHA256 ASICs. Regardless of whether the electricity cost was less than the amount of bitcoin mined...you'd still cook your chili. It was energy you were going to spend anyways, so any amount of bitcoin you mined was just an offset to your existing chili-cooking costs.

I don't think this concept translates to proof-of-stake mining, because I don't see the benefit. Would you store funds on your toaster, which in turn proves it has a certain stake in the network? What benefit would this provide over simply proving stake with a computer? When there is no heat to find a use for, this concept falls apart.

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  • I see, so the device hosting the node should make use of the mining in some way. Lets say the toaster did in fact have a POS system in it, but since it doesnt generate heat, we can't apply the same use case scenario for it. What if a company was to pay the person everytime the toaster was on because he's contributing to the network even if its a few cents. They were going to turn on the toaster anyway. Say the customer purchased the toaster for $100 and you allocate $50 of it to send it back to the customer everytime they turned on the toaster. And you juts sent 5 cents everytime.
    – Patoshi パトシ
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 15:21
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    I just don't understand why multiple devices need to be involved in POS. In POW, hardware is needed for the mining. In POS, only proof of ownership is needed. Why do you need a toaster to prove you own a certain amount of bitcoin?
    – Jestin
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 15:59

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