What’s Up With Intel’s Quick Dip In Cryptocurrency Mining Chips?

#Cryptocurrency #BlockChain and #DeFi are some of the hottest topics of recent times. From leading players like Bitcoin and Ethereum to surprise players like Dogecoin, the industry is constantly evolving and growing.

At least, that was the case in March 2022, when Intel decided to enter the cryptomining/blockchain market. Their plan? Specialized energy-efficient accelerators or chips based on the newly formed Bonanza Mine ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), which was renamed Blockscale.

These chips were reportedly to be delivered in the latter half of 2022 to big customers like BLOCK (formerly Square), Argo Blockchain and GRIID Infrastructure.

The announcement was made by Raja M. Koduri (then SVP - GM, Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group) in a blog post, which read, "We at Intel are declaring our intent to contribute to the development of blockchain technologies, with a roadmap of energy-efficient accelerators. Intel will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way.

"Our blockchain accelerator will ship later this year. We are engaged directly with customers that share our sustainability goals”, Koduri added, “This architecture is implemented on a tiny piece of silicon so that it has minimal impact to the supply of current products."
 
However, just over a year later, Intel officially announced that it plans to stop manufacturing the Blockscale 1000-series chips, with no plan for further generations. Reportedly, the company will stop taking orders in a few months and discontinue shipments by April 2024.

Instead, it will shift its focus toward its IDM 2.0 (Integrated Device Manufacturing) operations.

Speaking to Tom's Hardware about the topic, Intel said, “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.”

One of the reasons behind the discontinuation of the chips is believed to be the rough year cryptocurrencies faced in 2022 and declining prices of giants like Bitcoin, which reportedly lost nearly 65% of its market value throughout 2022. Other events such as the Terra Luna crash, the fall out of FTX and others didn’t help.
   
When asked if it planned to exit the ASICs business altogether, Intel responded saying, "We continue to monitor market opportunities."

Reportedly, other chipmakers like Nvidia and AMD have also been affected.

What do you think of Intel’s move? Do you think shifting focus to IDM 2.0 is the right strategy? Let us know in the comments below!