It could actually be a group of people who all have the best of intentions and there is still little to no chance that it will succeed.
Highly unlikely that anyone there has "best of intentions". The way that the lead figurehead avoids, deflects and attempts to redirect any sort of technical questions is very telling. If you had combined 120 years of experience and even "moderately neutral intentions" someone from that team would be able to post some information how their product is unique, all without disclosing proprietary information. Especially something about "redundant engines" and why they improve mining performance. Remember the old maxim: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Thus far you've received two references to college textbooks.
So this is probably a "virtual corporation" (a.k.a. "front") where the key technical information is in the hands of subcontractor and the subcontractor has not been paid yet.
i want to add a little note of support. First, a disclaimer. I am commercially unconnected with Novello ... i.e.: I've not placed an order with John, nor do i own any equity in the company, nor any financial nor commercial incentive etc etc etc. I want to make it absolutely clear i am not aligned with him in any way.
That said, i have had several discussions with John (the founder of Novello). Its news to me that his new company was even called Novello (that bit i didn't know) but nevertheless... I've chatted with him online for many months about this project, and also spoken by phone a few times (but haven't met face to face, which is odd as i live in london and i think he may do too, or at least in uk).
From what I know, I don't believe Novello is a scam, AND I have reason to believe that their tech claims are plausible and quite likely to be true.. i.e., a full custom 40nm asic, without any magic, would be capable of the power and performance that they're claiming. One of the reasons i believe their claims are achievable is because they're not the only people i know who are making claims of this level of performance and power consumption in asics due in the late 2014 and early 2015 timescales. I know of several other efforts in the same class. I am also aware of other projects that have used 'magic' (i.e., creative technology) to achieve similar power and performance - without resorting to a full custom asic design (e.g. Spondoolies with their Cryptographic optimisations - btw.. anyone know what they are ?)
I also believe that its likely *if* Novello receive their funding, that they're probably capable of delivering a good asic, and that they seem to have good intentions. What John said in his posts a few days ago is pretty much what he's been saying privately to me (and presumably a few others) for months, so this is not a rashly thought out concept. He's been working on this a long time.
NOW, where i see the risk factors are :-
Its tough out there. Bitcoin's pricing of late has deterred many from making pre-orders... and finding customers, investors or even investomers in this marketplace will be tough as its a crowded asic market.. with a lot of choice for customers, especially for miners available 'from stock'. And people are more than a little gun-shy after numerous scammy companies or non-scams and well intentioned but poorly executed companies have failed time and time again to deliver to schedule or to-spec hardware. even some who made good asics, had trouble delivering systems that best used the asics they had designed. naming no names. Some say its almost easier to design the asic than it is to design the complete system.
There's also the problem that many companies have fallen into the trap of pre-announcing a particular power or performance figure that they saw from their simulations and yet - when the chips arrived back from the fab - the reality falls far short of the simulations (AsicMiner was the latest to suffer this, but so have many others before them.. bfl etc). Even the original BitFury chip delivered half the performance that Valery expected (even though it was awesome and a class leader, anyway.. at half the intended performance)
So.. take this as a +1 that i don't think Novello is a scam. And that i think the guy is genuine. And that i believe their tech is possible. But put me as a doubter whether substantial pre-orders are even possible in this current marketplace (unless the price of bitcoin goes back up to its heady 1,000+ levels pretty damn soon)
-- Jez
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