Block , The financial services and technology company owned by former twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has declared the completion of its prototype design of new five-nanometer (5nm) Bitcoin mining chip — which it asserts is key to decentralize the supply of Bitcoin mining rigs.
On April 28 a blog post was published in which Block explained the technical and financial challenges that were undertaken while developing Bitcoin mining ASIC rigs.Block further adds and says that as a consequence of this,there will be “the excessive concentration of custom bitcoin mining silicon” in the hands of a select few companies. This centralization as per Block will be harmful to both miners and the Bitcoin network as a whole.
Remarkably, the San Francisco headquartered company further revealed its plans to make Bitcoin mining technology “open source” where there shall be possibility to “optimize innovation and maximize the size of the Bitcoin mining hardware ecosystem.” by selling standalone ASICs and other hardware components.
The post also highlighted that the steps taken over the past few months will allow the firm to experiment with new designs and help them in bringing more efficient and affordable Bitcoin mining chips to market. Block confessed that it has purchased a large batch of ASIC chips from Intel in order to accelerate this development push.
Last month on April 18, Intel declared that it would discontinue taking new orders for its Blockscale 1000 Series ASICs by Oct. 20 and end shipping in April 2024 as part of cost-cutting measures. Block explained that this large intake of ASICs from Intel will help fast-track the development of its proprietary 3nm chip, which it asserts upon its release, would be the most advanced chip to date.
‘’We can now focus our design team exclusively on cutting edge three nanometer ASIC development.” – Block
The scale of a nanometer (1nm) is approximately equivalent to the width of two silicon atoms. As parts of the chips become smaller, it permits for more transistors to fit into a silicon die of the same size. By reducing the overall size, the electric current travels less distance in the circuit to perform a calculation, which means that overall efficiency is improved and the amount of heat produced is decreased. Talking about ASIC chips ASIC stands for “application-specific integrated circuit” and refers to a computerized device that is optimized to complete a single computational function and is typically used for mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
It is noteworthy that 5 nanometre ASIC chips have been around for quite some time, with the earliest being 5 nm ASIC released in 2021 from Chinese mining firm Canaan. Currently, most Bitcoin mining ASICs run on 5 nm chips; However, Block shall be the first country that will make their ASIC chip design an open source.
The decision by Block to make Bitcoin mining technology open source and develop more efficient and affordable mining chips is significant. It could help to reduce the concentration of Bitcoin mining power in the hands of a few companies, making the network more decentralized and secure. This announcement is a positive development for the cryptocurrency sector, as it shows that companies are actively working towards making the technology more decentralized and accessible. It also highlights the importance of open source technology in promoting innovation and collaboration.