Re: Losing money for the consumer
Get your toaster dirt cheap, then open it up and cut the power lines to the miner and communications chips.
Or just put it on a switched receptacle, or put a switch on the power cord. The small amount of power drawn by the mining electronics while making toast contributes to the toasting, as N previous commentators have noted, and wouldn't significantly affect the cost of using the toaster anyway. You just don't want those chips getting power while you're not making toast.
The mining is irrelevant - you won't do any significant mining - but it's probably less work than taking the thing apart.
Unfortunately the toasters in question probably won't be very good models. This sort of thing looks to target the low end of the market, for non-discerning customers. That's if 21 Inc ever gets its gear into any free/discounted appliances at all; I suspect at some point it'll fold, having accomplished nothing but bilking investors (let us all shed a tear), employing a few folks for a few years, and making an even smaller number of con artists entrepreneurs wealthy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
