Jack Dorsey's New Initiative Could Bring Decentralization To Crypto Mining Industry

Block, an American tech conglomerate founded by internet entrepreneur and programmer Jack Dorsey, is reportedly set to bring revolutionary changes to the emerging world of cryptocurrency mining by developing its own custom silicon mining chip.

Block is trying to level the playing field in the Bitcoin mining Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) category by launching a new product that would introduce the much-needed decentralization in the industry.

Dorsey's company said in an update released Sunday that it had successfully created the prototype design of a 5-nanometer high-performance Bitcoin mining ASIC, which is a technically and financially challenging task.

"In support of our 3-nanometer ASIC development, this month we moved forward with manufacturing a prototype of our completed 5-nanometer design," Block said in the update.

"This is an exciting milestone which will allow us to experiment with design variants, validate our design work, and calibrate our testing on real silicon. We expect to receive the prototypes back this fall," it added, noting that "they will be a valuable input into our three nanometer ASIC development work."

Moreover, Dorsey's company shared that it had closed a deal with Intel Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of central processing units and semiconductors, for its Bitcoin mining ASICs.

This agreement reportedly allowed Block to get a major boost to fast-track its mining system development and create next-generation 3-nanometer ASICs, which are only available to a few companies at the moment.

"However, as we were planning this tape out, we learned of an opportunity to acquire a large volume of bitcoin mining ASICs from Intel, and just completed a purchase agreement with Intel," Block revealed in the update.

"This immediate access to production ASICs accelerates our mining system development, enabling us to get to market more quickly," it noted further, underlining that the move allowed the company to "focus our design team exclusively on cutting edge 3-nanometer ASIC development."

Last month, Intel made a move that could mean a major setback in the Bitcoin mining industry.

The chipmaker announced its plan to stop the production of its Bitcoin mining chip series just over a year after its launch in the market.

Intel anticipates halting getting orders for the crypto mining chip called Blockscale on Oct. 20 and discontinuing shipping the product by April 20, 2024.

"As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC while we continue to support our Blockscale customers," an Intel spokesperson said at the time.