Block, a fintech-payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, announced the purchase of a large number of Bitcoin mining chips from Intel in a Friday blog post. With Intel ceasing the production of these Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) in April 2024, this provides Block with an opportunity to bring mining machines to the market in a timely manner. If successful in their venture, Block's main focus will be to develop their cutting-edge 3 nanometer chips, allowing for more powerful and effective machines.

The importance of nanometers in chip design refers to the size of each transistor. The smaller the transistors, the more calculations can be made, thus creating a more powerful chip. Thanks to Block's purchase of Intel's ASICs, they now have the sufficient amount of chips to begin creating 3 nanometer chips, with the machines being available early next year.

The true purpose of Block's entrance into the mining hardware market is not to become the latest player in the mining industry, which is currently dominated by two firms, Bitmain and MicroBT. It is to improve the decentralization of the Bitcoin network by providing more tools for more people to build and use. It is for this reason that Block has announced a mining development kit which provides developers with a suite of tools to create products with their chips, something the company is open-sourcing for the help of the community to contribute to its development.

Block's purchase of Bitcoin mining chips from Intel may well prove to be a game-changer for the mining industry as a whole, providing a fantastic opportunity to increase the decentralization of the Bitcoin network. With Block committed to providing the tools and technology needed for more people to build, this could be precisely what the mining market needs.



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