On October 15, 2015, The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published 21 Inc.’s (21) patent application 20150294308 for “Digital Mining Circuitry.” Matthew Pauker, then CEO (now Chairman) alongside his co-founders are listed as the inventors. The application reveals how mining circuitry in various devices can be used to profit share or share in bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) rewards with a number of participants in the scheme. Earlier this year, 21, a company whose name is homage to the maximum number of bitcoins to be mined (21 million), announced that it raised a record US$116 million in venture funding. …