I'm having to hedge my scepticism on the basis that I know I know barely any more about bitcoin mining technology than the average layman, and VCs can bring in highly skilled specialists for their due diligence, especially for investments of this magnitude. But when a press release fails to acknowledge the level of technical breakthrough they'd need to have achieved for their product to be viable, and instead launches straight into a series of theoretical monetisation strategies of varying degrees of plausibility, I think the cynicism is entirely warranted.
If they actually have a team of engineers that could develop chips with far more computational power in relation to their size and energy requirements than anything else on the market, you'd have to wonder why they'd think persuading consumers to put Bitcoin miners in their pocket was the most promising avenue to monetise.
Basically, if they've got the tech to do this, they could get rich just by selling that tech, and not screwing around with Bitcoin
For that to work at all, they'd have to have some technology that revolutionized bitcoin mining at the most fundamental of levels, and they haven't indicated that they do.
That's what's so weird about this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
We still can't be 100% sure if it's ridiculous or not, but all signs are pointing to not. So assuming Balaji et al are acting in good faith and aren't scamming their investors (one of whom Balaji is a partner in so that would be weird) this is cool and I can't wait to see what it does and where it goes.