Bitcoin development and NDAs

[cbeast]

It's too quiet in development space. All we hear about anymore is altcoins and payment protocol layers. There's a few small hardware projects that have been slowly improving. I'm concerned that hardware development has nearly stopped, but find myself doubting that possibility. Somebody somewhere is working on something big in complete secrecy.

I wonder at the value in such a policy in this new spirit of openness. Other have expressed suspicion at hushed motives by core developers in private efforts. While some secrecy is important during startup phases, full disclosure of development should be SOP. After all, all bitcoin holders are also investors in all Bitcoin projects.

I can understand if a large enterprise doesn't want to associate its image with a politically charged topic, but we're beyond that now. Bitcoin is ready for some serious R&D for protocol hardware. I can only hope NDAs are why it's so quiet lately.

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[scarsbergholden]

I think hardware development has stopped/slowed down so much because it is no longer feasible to finance R&D of new hardware with pre-orders as corporate customers will generally not pay for a pre-order and they are not the only ones who have sufficient capital that could potentially pay for r&d.

People have also gotten burned very badly by paying for pre-orders many months prior to *estimated* delivery time as by the time they were received they would be much less profitable then when they were ordered and sometimes even unprofitable to run

[yayayo]

I think hardware development has stopped/slowed down so much because it is no longer feasible to finance R&D of new hardware with pre-orders as corporate customers will generally not pay for a pre-order and they are not the only ones who have sufficient capital that could potentially pay for r&d.

People have also gotten burned very badly by paying for pre-orders many months prior to *estimated* delivery time as by the time they were received they would be much less profitable then when they were ordered and sometimes even unprofitable to run

This and in the mining space the potential for further improvement is not of the same magnitude as in the past.

The jump from CPU to GFX and then to ASIC mining was a each an efficiency improvement of several magnitudes. Now you can only optimize...

ya.ya.yo!

[chrisvl]

I think there are things yet to be done to make the bitcoin friendly especially in people who have difficulties in using it...

[scarsbergholden]

I think hardware development has stopped/slowed down so much because it is no longer feasible to finance R&D of new hardware with pre-orders as corporate customers will generally not pay for a pre-order and they are not the only ones who have sufficient capital that could potentially pay for r&d.

People have also gotten burned very badly by paying for pre-orders many months prior to *estimated* delivery time as by the time they were received they would be much less profitable then when they were ordered and sometimes even unprofitable to run

This and in the mining space the potential for further improvement is not of the same magnitude as in the past.

The jump from CPU to GFX and then to ASIC mining was a each an efficiency improvement of several magnitudes. Now you can only optimize...

ya.ya.yo!

You can make the miners more energy efficient (which I guess is optimizing). KnC recently claimed to be working on miners that consume 10% of the energy per GHs that current 28nm miners consume. This is not quite the jump that we saw from GPU mining to ASIC mining but is still a large jump.

[Swordsoffreedom]

It's too quiet in development space. All we hear about anymore is altcoins and payment protocol layers. There's a few small hardware projects that have been slowly improving. I'm concerned that hardware development has nearly stopped, but find myself doubting that possibility. Somebody somewhere is working on something big in complete secrecy.

I wonder at the value in such a policy in this new spirit of openness. Other have expressed suspicion at hushed motives by core developers in private efforts. While some secrecy is important during startup phases, full disclosure of development should be SOP. After all, all bitcoin holders are also investors in all Bitcoin projects.

I can understand if a large enterprise doesn't want to associate its image with a politically charged topic, but we're beyond that now. Bitcoin is ready for some serious R&D for protocol hardware. I can only hope NDAs are why it's so quiet lately.

In terms of mining, I wouldn't be certain that any new groups have NDA's but it would make sense to not make an announcement until they are able to deliver a good product, in other fields related to Bitcoin the silence likely means that there are new competitors emerging that are funded by big enough venture capital groups to address new areas in the Bitcoin field.

As for protocol hardware in Bitcoin itself except for what the devs mention on Github not sure what the ongoing state of affairs is there, I do know that blockchain compression still remains one of the main goals, and multi-sig is the innovation of 2014. I guess in a sense it's moving at a snailpace but I haven't been keeping up with the BIP's so I don't have much of an opinion there myself.

Guess all I can say is that things are brewing in the background one way or the other.

[franky1]

In terms of mining, I wouldn't be certain that any new groups have NDA's but it would make sense to not make an announcement until they are able to deliver a good product, in other fields related to Bitcoin the silence likely means that there are new competitors emerging that are funded by big enough venture capital groups to address new areas in the Bitcoin field.

As for protocol hardware in Bitcoin itself except for what the devs mention on Github not sure what the ongoing state of affairs is there, I do know that blockchain compression still remains one of the main goals, and multi-sig is the innovation of 2014. I guess in a sense it's moving at a snailpace but I haven't been keeping up with the BIP's so I don't have much of an opinion there myself.

Guess all I can say is that things are brewing in the background one way or the other.

+1
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea and want pre-pays, have never really panned out well (BFL)
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea and to tell the world instantly find competition grows which shrinks thir potential share of future customers.
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea before having a prototype do not get far in private VC funding.

all of which shows that while the money grabbing ego maniacs looking for celebrity stats are dying off.. smarter and wiser businesses are jumping in.
for instance winklevoss are very quiet and waiting for the day to make their big announcement, rather then trying to push people to pre-buy bitcoin baskets.. but when that day comes.. you will thank them

[wunkbone]

In terms of mining, I wouldn't be certain that any new groups have NDA's but it would make sense to not make an announcement until they are able to deliver a good product, in other fields related to Bitcoin the silence likely means that there are new competitors emerging that are funded by big enough venture capital groups to address new areas in the Bitcoin field.

If this is true, then it would certainly be a good improvement from what mining manufacturers were previously doing.....as in announcing they were going to produce products that met certain specifications, presold products that only met those specifications then would not ship anything until there were able to design and produce products that met such specs. This resulted in companies potentially getting "stuck" in their design process as they may have been able to get close to the efficiency goals, but were not good enough to ship to customers that were expecting better results. Without the preannouncement, they can wait until they actually design the product that may have not met it's original goals, but are still close.

[cbeast]

I'm hoping Trezor and Mycelium are secretly collaborating.

[yayayo]

I'm hoping Trezor and Mycelium are secretly collaborating.

Why should they?

Mycelium has their own Bitcoincard almost ready for production (at least they claim)...

I'm sure we will see more new hardware in the hardware wallet space (which is really great), but less innovation in the mining space.

ya.ya.yo!

[cbeast]

I'm hoping Trezor and Mycelium are secretly collaborating.

Why should they?

Mycelium has their own Bitcoincard almost ready for production (at least they claim)...

I'm sure we will see more new hardware in the hardware wallet space (which is really great), but less innovation in the mining space.

ya.ya.yo!

Trezor is a hardware wallet while Bitcoincard is (ttbomk) an online wallet. They are two great things that would go great together, like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

[cyberpinoy]

Busines is business I think the OP is correct. Along wiht other replies in ths thread a few thigs are going on, pre0order has burnt out and can nt be used. the scammer have seized the day on that situation fully, now with the current difficulty to the income ratio, it is not profitable to mine Bitcoins in roughly 42% of the world. Places like where I live for instance, the electric rates are already 2 times as much as places like CAnada and USA, thent he landlords add another amount onto each KWH you use making your electricity rates actually 3 times the amount of USA and Canada, this equals NOT PROFITABLE TO MINE. once that percentage hits 60% of the world the plans that are inn motio will be released. if you honslty think the tru good Bitcoin manufactures are just sitting on their ass waiting to sell what they have left in invitory you are so misguided. they have no inventory, they are like a viper they have thier plan they are just sitting waiting for the time to strike. Cloud GHS is very low cost to 6 months ago, low cloud means hardware companies must compete which makes their products also very low cost. Once the value of bitcoins raises and the value of cloud goes up with the trend you will see an explosion of manufactures releasing the machines they are manufacturing right now .

There is no secret its commmon business economics, why release a machine that cuts the cost of energy in half or more when you can wait until the value goes up and you can make 4 times as much for the same machine.

If you have not realized yet The Bitcoin Industry from development to demand is nothing more than a sit around and wait game. No one ever progresses this industry, everyone is sitting around waiting for someone else to do the work. You miner manufacturers are no different They are sitting around waiting for the Bubble (that may not happen this year) hoping they can reap profits from their machines like before.