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slush
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:14 pm

Hi Marek,

Thank you for coming here!

Around when do you think the next version of the Trezor will come out or is it still a while before there will be any hardware updates?
We're generally satisfied with TREZOR design approach. Comparing to our competitors, we don't plan to add GSM, Bluetooths, Wifis, batteries and other unnecessary stuff, which makes the device more expensive, more complex and less secure. Our initial idea was "hardware wallet to everyone's hand", not make a crappy and expensive mobile phone/tablet :-). Although current pricetag may seems a bit high, we're still in track of our initial vision and we're focused to eliminate unnecessary obstacles and make TREZOR even more minimalistic and available to wide audience.
What are some of the most rewarding things about running a mining pool?
Reputation. I think reputation is everything in such anonymous and decentralized environment like Bitcoin and Internet. It is really easy to lost reputation, but it take years to earn it. Pool and TREZOR projects open us doors to many interesting people and opportunities and I like that we'll have a chance to improve (bitcoin) world even more thanks to this.
What are your thoughts about the balance of power in deciding the direction of bitcoin -- between the users, industry such as exchanges and merchants, miners and developers? How can the different segments of bitcoin society work together and not get stymied by negative actors?
Bitcoin is such crazy social experiment! I think this may be the first time in history where people unknown each to other have a real motivation to act honestly and cooperate. Of course as the experiment is going on, there're more visible downsides and weak points. Myself I'm concerned by few huge miners with an access to cheap hardware, huge mining facilities and little motivation to act honestly. I think this has to be addressed and physical mining hardware should be distributed more equally around the world.

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slush
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:36 pm

If you had full control of Bitcoin core what changes would you implement first?
I would kick of everything unnecessary to relay node and validation of blockchain and add reasonable API for external applications. Current monolithic architecture is hell and we fight with Core integration in Pool and TREZOR all the time, just because current JSON API is horrible and does not offer enough tools and performance for enterprise usage.

All stuff like mining or wallet functionality should be maintained separately by another teams. For example, Core still does not implement HD wallets, although all other major wallets have it for long time. Of course it's because small team of Core devs cannot do everyhing at once.

Unfortunately Core for its complexity and steep learning curve is behind closed doors for most developers. Also all those never-ending flamewars on mailing list and github - this may be the reason why many people left the project and why the codebase is lagging behind standards.

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slush
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:55 pm

Hi Marek,

welcome to bitcoin.com! :)

My question:

Are you planing to sell a cheaper Hardware Wallet in the future?
Hi LiteCoinGuy, thanks for hosting AMA here! :-)

Hardware wallet in hands of every bitcoiner is definitely our vision, so yes, low price and wide availability are our primary goals. However R&D is quite massive; it is not only about hardware itself, but about full bitcoin stack. There's team of ~10 people working on TREZOR fulltime for years already and we're financing that only from our sources and sells. From this point of view, I'm really proud of SatoshiLabs, that for just $99 and small product batches we were able to develop world-unique solution from the ground, we're successfully selling it worldwide and that we have free resources for further development and improvements.

To put this into perspective, some of cheap Chinese TREZOR clones are out of market, although they got *everything* from us for free, because TREZOR is completely opensource. So even they did not put a dollar into R&D and they just took final product into chinese production facility, they did not make it financially viable.

Side note to financing TREZOR project: Although we had offers, we didn't accept VC funding, because we wanted to have free hands with our strategy and product development. I had a chance to work for some VC-funded projects before and it mostly turned into a "never ever" experience. Our primary goaI is to do something useful for customers and prove TREZOR is a viable product.
...and what is about the giant red underpants :D ? Tell us!
Haha, I've explained this in previous post. It was some political act/performance of our bitcoin friends on Prague Castle!
Last edited by slush on Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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slush
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:10 pm

Marek, 2 q's:

1. What are your thoughts on proof of work vs. proof of stake? Do you think Ethereum could develop a viable alternative to proof of work?

2. As someone in the industry, what are your primary news sources for Bitcoin/crypto, and why?

Appreciate your thoughts.
ad 1) Firstly, I don't consider myself to be an expert on proof of stake nor Ethereum. Thankfully I have friends/colleagues around me who are such expert! :-) I don't know how to solve many issues of proof of stake like initial distribution of coins or security (you don't want to keep your private keys online - TREZOR ftw!). However I don't say this cannot be addressed somehow.

ad Ethereum) I don't think Ethereum will be viable solution in general. It seems too complex to me, much more complex than Bitcoin. Firstly I consider myself a minimalist, so such monolithic solutions are not attracting me. Secondly, I personally have a bad experience with too complex systems which try to solve too much things at once. In the end they do not work perfect for any single use case.

ad 2) Unfortunately I don't have any secret link to Satoshi :-(. So I read bitcoin magazines, follow mailing lists (although I cannot read everything anymore because lack of time) and I read Reddit. I'm also in active Bitcoin community here in Prague, so important news come to me from every side :-).

Anyway, I'm really pissed of Theymos (bitcoin subreddit moderator), because his censorship is ridiculous. He even removed link to this AMA once it appear on subreddit homepage. So I follow also /r/btc and /r/bitcoinxt.

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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:32 pm

Hello Marek
I was re-reading Antifragile by iconoclast thinker Nassim Taleb recently. He writes
"Never ask anyone for their opinion [...] Just ask them what they have -or don't have- in their portfolio"
I have come to think it's a very relevant question and you can better weight people's opinions having an idea of how many Bitcoins they hold (or do not hold.) So Instead of asking their opinion on bitcoin, I'm now asking every participants the same question:

- Do you mind to tell us which percentage of your personal net worth and/or liquid assets you hold in Bitcoins ?
Call me crazy, but I'm full in bitcoin. I just believe in what we're working on.

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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:44 pm

That was the last question in this AMA. Thank you for your attention and all your questions, they were really intersting! Incidentally I'm on Slush Pool hackathon right now; whole team is in Krkonose mountains in hut, sitting all days in front of monitor and coding new features for the Pool. Pool team is waving to you and I'm back going to them, continue working on improved Stratum protocol :-).

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iFixBTCmemoryIssues
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:49 pm

Hello everybody! I just sit in front of keyboard. Let's go to answers!
Congrats on TREZOR!
Thank you! Positive feedback is one of main motivation for our projects :-).
AND LOTS OF MONEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Happy Holidays :)
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If you are running a version of Bitcoin Core, stop using it. Upgrade to Bitcoin Unlimited or Classic immediately.

Fix Your Unconfirmed Transaction.

Vote for the future of our Bitcoin network!

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Donate BTC of your choice to qrd9y7aas8ce7hla5mlcrcjjmhld3v84zghvylyq

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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Fri Dec 04, 2015 7:50 am

Wow the picture looks lovely.

Thank you for answering all our questions and I'm looking forward to seeing what your new project will be.
Signing Address: qrd9y7aas8ce7hla5mlcrcjjmhld3v84zghvylyqm4

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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:21 pm

I didn't see a really to.my question, but here's the kind of answer I was looking for
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... o_slow_it/

Kula13
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:17 pm

Hello Marek.
Back in 2012 i open a wallet for storing BTC. My problem is really stupid. I do not remember the name on the webside where i open the wallet. I found the paper note where i wrote down username, password and a pincode. I also got a Recovery key. The recovery key they told me, would be shown to me only one time, and if i loose the it, i would not be able to open my account again. The R key has 22 mix og letters and numbers. So my question for you is; could you please give me some advice what to do to locate my wallet? Can you please find out if i may have open an account on this site, Bitcoin.com?
I'm looking forward to hear from you. Thank you.

fearless felder
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Mon Dec 18, 2017 3:51 pm

Hi Marek,


I'm new to bitcoin but I know that this currency will redefine our current system as we know today by cutting out the middleman,the banks. I want to be apart of this revolution,my background is sales and marketing with 30 years of experience. I have the domain name of www.bittaken.com,I want to get funding to start a company that signs up retailers to accept bitcoin as payment and act as a shoppers guide for bit. I want to put together a team in Chicago, nationally than international by years end. I would like your team and financial support on this project,my concept will increase the demand though consumers interactions which will increase brand visibility. I can be reached at 312-622-1057,I'm ready when you call!

Front-line man
Rob Fearless Felder


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phoenix.spirtual
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Thu Feb 15, 2018 6:47 am

hi! i am new here can you please teach me a few things!!!

; how to post things on the main feed

and so on then

can you help me answer some question about bitcoin! :)

thanks


i hope you reply as soon as you get this messsge :) :)
i am new here :D :D :) ;)



dsdarduck
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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:09 am

Marek,

Do you see value in bitcoin related domain names? I'm currently selling BitcoinMining.io on Flippa and am curious what opportunities you would see with this name. I also own DigitalWallet.io if you wouldn't mind providing your thoughts on this one either. Thanks in advance.

https://flippa.com/9606939-bitcoinmining-io

r,
Darrin

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Re: I'm Marek Palatinus (slush), creator of the first mining pool and creator of TREZOR. AMA - 3rd Dec!

Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:46 pm

Your project saved my crypto life


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