Hi guys, sorry for being inactive for so long but I've had some of the worst 2 weeks of my life. I found out my dog has terminal cancer which made him slowly lose his ability to walk or basically do anything, so I had to take care of him and carry him outside so he could actually go to the bathroom. He was a heavy dog, around 110 pounds. Unfortunately, he has already died. He was 12 and we did try all possible treatments but it was just too advanced. He had had surgery a couple months back to remove a tumour and thought he was fine but unfortunately he wasn't. I buried him on Monday and today was pretty much the first day I felt capable of coming and replying here.
So first of all, since this has been a discussion for a long time on this thread, the US company is out, it's actually been out for the past 2 weeks since the 6th of June, I just didn't have the energy or mindspace to come and post here. I'm honestly not sure how to link it here but the company is called Ringwallet Inc; registered as a C-Corp, in Delaware, with file number 3858518. I think you can search for it on the department of state website of delaware. So Vod, the company is out, it's actually been out for 2 weeks since I said it would, the filings should prove this as well, I honestly just didn't have the energy for this. So I would appreciate if you can remove the trustpilot rating as you said you would.
Moving beyond that
Really cool concept but the potentials of attacks against people that are wearing these type of jewelry is definitely concerning, maybe if there's a way to customize the ring so it's totally not easily seen as something identifiable to be your product might be a big help, what I mean is that people should be able to add modifications to it that would make it look like any other ring on someone's finger, the lack of customization in my opinion is a security flaw because as what RickDecard, once it becomes a mainstream thing, scammers and people that have ill intentions will definitely try to do something about it once they recognize the ring.
For now the ring has no recognisable elements anywhere on the ring, theres's a simple pictogram logo on the inside of it with the initials "rw" and that's it. In the future we may consider offering customisations but for now at least that's not viable because it would be a manufacturing nightmare.
thanks for trying to bring an innovating bitcoin product to market.
Thanks
why would they need to do that? couldn't they just keep using the ringwallet like always? or is there some type of server infrastructure that would no longer exist if the company went out of businesses and thus nothing would work anymore?
They could, but they would need some sort of UI to interact with the ring. Assuming the company goes out of business and the app isn't in google store anymore then you'd need to download your own apk so you can have the UI and interact with it.
Even if we end up deciding to publish it as source-available, you would still be able to do that since the company would have gone out of business in your example. With that said, we are gravitating more towards open-source at this moment either way and we're going to take a final decision in the coming weeks and announce it here.
open source is better since then people can do bug fixes and things. even if the company is no longer around. and they can do it without any fear of repercussion.
On that note, the rest of the team has had time to talk in the past 2 weeks and for now the consensus seems to be that we'll be publishing everything (the apps, the ring firmware etc) as open-source (not source-available). The exact time hasn't been decided but it will be sometime before delivery of the first batch of products.
$25 would be reasonable. since i think the conveniences of not having to plug something into a computer or recharge a battery are very big benefits plus the form factor is tiny you can take it anywhere. i would love to have something like that which i can interact with through my phone too.
but i'm confused about the "battery life" you say on the website it is 10 years. does it really even have a battery inside the ring? and what happens once that battery dies, it can't be replaced?
are you sure there are no software bugs that make it vulnerable to losing funds? big question right? any new product in this niche it seems like they all go through a process where people find bugs/exploits which then have to be fixed and ineviitably someone lost funds because of that exploit.
Yeah so regarding the first thing, about the 25$ wallet, it is our wish to have a very cheap affordable wallet, but please be aware that this is probably at least 6+ months away as first we want to launch the ring and make sure everything works well before moving on to other things.
There is no battery in the ring, the battery life of 10 years on the website is moreso due to legal requirements, in the sense that we need to include a minimum life expectancy of the product if used in normal conditions (i.e. not setting it on fire, diving with it at 200m etc) so that's what 10 years means, the minimum lifespan of the product. In theory, the chip itself is graded for a minimum lifespan of 20 years and can last even longer than that but we wanted to be on the safe side.
Regarding software bugs, obviously we did our best to make sure there's no software bugs, but even if they are there should be maybe UI bugs or things like that, not bugs that can make you lose your funds. Of course it's a new product but as I said above, at the end of the day, we figured that if we publish everything open-source then 1. people can just check the code themselves and if they find anything wrong message us and 2. will hopefully help in building some reputation
So anyway guys, that's pretty much it for the above. In terms of other updates, we've had a physical event in Cluj sometime last week; I didn't attend because was taking care of my dog in his last days but Christian our CMO did attend. We are continuing our fundraising round and I am hopeful it will be done in <60 days from now and moving forward we will slowly start sending out free rings to influencers and etc. We are now waiting on a batch of rings to come and have reached the final design for the boxes and waiting for them as well. Other than that, we should be publishing the apps in the app stores in the coming weeks as well, waiting for final approvals for developer accounts.
Anyway, I'll try to keep all of you updated but now that I've posted this I'm probably going to take a few more days for myself until I come back and answer more questions just to get in a better state of mind after the entire thing because he's been my dog for 12 years and in all honesty I still kind of feel like shit. Hope the above answers all the questions. Cheers.
