No. This is a poor argument, by all accounts. And an argument that revolves entirely around Cointerra's story.
Until Cointerra were drawn into the "have they or haven't they" question surrounding the mask tape-outs, it was never an issue, and never a marketing strategy. For any ASIC company, of which there have been 4 that came before them.
i don't entirely agree... ever since 28nm silicon started (with KnCMiner).. and the cost of producing a new bitcoin asic has became astronomical, the biggest hurdle for any new (28nm) asic company has to overcome is selling enough pre-sales orders (or finding investors) to be able to pay the $5m+ that it costs to enter production - previously with 110, 65 or 40nm, a much less expensive proposition. I agree that after tape-out its not just plain sailing - theres plenty of other execution risk (as hashfast has demonstrated).. but the tape-out hurdle and the associated pre-sales requirement is pretty much the biggest hurdle to overcome in a bitcoin asic company's life - because it means two huge things have been achieved. 1. that the asic is finished, tested, and meets its target specs (verified by the physical design partner, which is an outside and completely unpartisan team), and 2. that the company has raised enough cash via pre-sales to enter full production. This significantly de-risks the delivery timeline once tape-out has passed, both from a technical and financial security point of view. The company has therefore overcome its the biggest milestone (not that there aren't plenty of other execution hurdles on the way to achieving a successful on-schedule delivery)
There is no evidence of Cointerra's tape-out, and even if it were the truth, it is by no means their only challenge whilst trying to complete this project. All sorts of other problems can cause delays, and there is no real way to know which of these problems are real and which are concealing embarrassing oversight of something simple. BFL played that exact same game with their customers; anytime a delay was announced it was attributed to somehting highly technical, and never to something as prosaic as bad contingency planning in their material requirements.
what the hell does that mean? no evidence of cointerra's tape-out ? doing a joint press release with their partner is the evidence. What more do you need? What more could you possibly have? You don't think they could lie do you? You certainly don't think their physical design partner is going to allow them to mislead about anything, let alone something as massive as a tape-out do you? a tape-out announcement is pretty definitive and for you to think that it could be misleading is ridiculous fantasy. after tape-out, the next big milestone is silicon arrival.
With these ASIC developers, it's always: "We're so ahead of our time, so bleeding edge, that the challenges of technology innovation are unfolding in totally unexpected ways! Even Stephen Hawking and Einstein couldn't have seen this one coming!"
Whereas the reality is we have no proof of these things, all we really know is they goofed something up, and are using excuses that very few people are qualified to comment on, and no-one independent can actually verify.
thats pretty much my point.. to some extent at least, more transparency.. more announcements.. more status updates... are useful for us customers knowing whats going on behind the black box that is asic development. we want to see the updates. now, once an asic enters the fab, you probably won't get many updates (and certainly not ones for public consumption)... you just have an expected eta that the fab gives you... and then out pops the silicon... for you to hope it works.