OK, past few days were quite wild. I am currenly in El Salvador because I was attending the Adopting Bitcoin conference. My very limited internet connection here made it quite difficult to engage, I mostly just got push notifications. Hereby I want to take the opportunity to tell the story from my side.
TL;DR: We were just having fun, we thought it was okay. Apperently it's not and nvk is is so upset that he felt he had to file a GitHub takedown request. I feel that's not how bitcoiners behave.
How it started
I have been working on the #BTClock since April '23. It started of some sort of bet where I challenged myself to make a BTC ticker as cheap as possible. I just ordered seven eInk displays on AliExpress with the intention of showing information related to bitcoin using an ESP32.
Why seven? Because the words BITCOIN and SATOSHI both consist of seven letters and connecting more screens to the ESP32 did not seem possible without adding I/O-port expanders.
Yes. The idea was inspired (among other projects) by Blockclock, which also uses eInk displays. I don't own one, so I couldn't "reverse engineer" or use any direct inspiration of it but the way you can combine multiple eInk displays to display information in an useful way is very limited.
After getting the schematic right. I created a 3D printable case for it (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6009628) and named it BTClock after someone's idea in the Dutch Noderunners community. Since it consists of seven characters I thought it's the perfect name since it fits the seven displays too.
May 2023
This allows you to create a BTClock for ±70 euro (if you own a 3D printer).
I shared the progress of the project in the MakerBits telegram group. Ben Arc checked with nvk how he felt about it, and I have seen his responsse where he replied with that he felt honored and that I should go ahead. In hindsight, I should've asked Ben to forward this to me but I wouldn't expect this to "haunt" me like it did last week.
After sharing the very spaghetti-y schematic in some Telegram groups, someone replied that he was working on making an actual PCB out of it. After some DM'ing back and forth we got our first PCB prototype that needed some work. After 4 iterations we finally got it how we wanted and were able to sell DIY kits. The PCB is real artwork, so we wanted to show it off. Therefore we added a acrylic backplate to be able to protect it while still able to see the proof-of-work by Madbo, the PCB artwork designer. We used a lot of through hole components to make it accesible for anyone who has a soldering iron.
August 2023
In August 2023 we finally got the kits ready, while the initial plan was to only sell the DIY kit within the Dutch Noderunners community, I brought smoe with me to Baltic Honeybadger '23 as well, where it proved to be pretty succesful while sitting next to Ben in the chilling lounge.
I got a lot of encouraging and positive remarks about the project, including Daniel Prince (@princeysov) who tweeted about this (https://x.com/Princey21M/status/1698257536418267624).
It appeared that this tweet firstly poked the lion, since nvk sent some of his coinkite employees to me after this tweet, a group of 4 people asked a lot of questions while filming me (without my consent, I didn't realize this when they were asking it but when they walked away it was clear to see the iPhone was recording video).
Not a lot later, nvk sent out a tweet which was clearly about the BTClock project without explicitly mentioning the name (https://x.com/nvk/status/1698423362819682400)
However, in my opinion this did still fit the message I read he wrote to Ben that he was more flattered than upset. It was only then when I learned about how he reacted to Foundation Passport and how he behaves regarding the SeedSigner project.
March 2024
During Bitcoin Atlantis in March 2024, there was a nice space for the MakerBits projects including the BTClock, the software by this time has many improvements, including real-time new block notifications by utilizing the Mempool.space Websocket API. Since the hardware is also open source, many alternative faceplates are available including a stainless steel one and a completely white one. Multiple people witnessed nvk walking passed the maker space while looking at me, but he did not engage or whatsoever. I would expect if he would take offense by the product, he would've approached me by now but he didn't. He does know who I am though, both in real-life and I'm posting enough on my social media accounts (Nostr and Xitter) to find me there as well.
Fast forward to November 2024
A lot has happened in the development of the BTClock, among other things I added a BitAxe integration and Nostr Zap Notifications to the software and we managed to add frontlight to the eInk displays which I really think sets the BTClock apart from other "tickers" like the Blockclock mini.
The Blockclock mini hasn't had any updates for two years (since October 3rd, 2022) which seems to be like the Blockclick mini can be considered end-of-life.
I therefore was very suprised that when I woke up on November 14th, I received an e-mail that the BTClock GitHub organization was flagged because of alleged trademark infringement of the BTClock.
This was according to a report by Coinkite to GitHub. The letter I shared in the MakerBits Telegram group was ONLY sent to GitHub, not to me (although I haven't been home for a while so I don't know something is waiting in my physical mailbox).
Luckily git is decentralized version control and there are already mirrors of the hardware and software source available. Also GitHub allows me to appeal but haven't taken the chance to do so.
Although I do understand that the concept of trademarks exists for a reason, I feel this a very cowardly move and certainly not something that I would expect from fellow bitcoiners. Just sending me a DM on Nostr, X or Telegram is the least I would expect. I don't mean to offend or infringe, and would be happy to discuss options if open to it. Either in DM or out in the open.
I'm all about transparency so
here is my invitation to discuss this out in the open. I'm sorry that we seem to upset you. what is it that bothers you, can we find a way to let the projects co-exist? Or even see if the BTClock software can adapted to your Blockclock mini hardware.
