Intel Leaves Crypto Mining; Halts Bitcoin Mining Chip Production

Intel’s recent announcement of suspending the Bitcoin mining chip implies the company’s future crypto plan.
Earlier, Nvidia, now Intel, major chip-makers distanced themselves from crypto operations.

Semiconductor giant Intel is signing off the crypto mining space. The company is said to join the crypto band quite late, though leaving earlier than completing a year. Intel brought its Bitcoin mining chip last year but recently announced the production of its suspension.

As reported, Intel is shutting down further production of Blockscale ASICs, its Bitcoin mining chips launched in June 2022. Additionally, there was no indication of continuation after halting its first generation Blockscale 1000-series chips.

When asked, Intel said the decision to “end-of-life the Intel Blockscale 100 Series ASIC” came after the company’s increasing focus on its Integrated Device Manufacturing 2.0 (IDM 2.0). However, it clarified the current Blockscale customers would continuously receive the support in the future.

The chip manufacturer reportedly seeks to separate its semiconductor foundry and design team with IDM 2.0. In addition to exiting the bitcoin mining chip sector, Intel also pulled itself from several other businesses citing the internal tightening. Leaving the possibility of returning in the future, they said to “monitor market opportunities.”

Reuters reported, citing the document on its official website, Intel will not take orders for the Blockscale series chips by October 2023. In addition, it will wrap up its shipping by April 2024.

Intel entered the crypto mining space during the whole industry’s bad phase. It was in June last year when it launched its Bitcoin mining chips; around the same time, Bitcoin (BTC) was lingering at 19,000 USD.

However, Bitcoin’s upswing started after the starting of this after almost a year-long bearish phase due to crypto winter circumstances. BTC recently touched its ten-month high after its trading price exceeded 30,000 USD. However, at the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price slid more than 4% last week and is currently trading at 28,876 USD.

The instance of Intel leaving the crypto space is not the first; several other companies took an exit given distinct reasons. Earlier, another leading chip maker Nvidia revealed the company’s intentions toward cryptocurrency mining operations. Given the high processing power, the graphical processing units (GPUs) produced by Nvidia were used in crypto mining at a large scale. Citing the GPU usage in mining, the company refrained from letting this happen in the future.

TheCoinRepublic reported earlier that Nvidia sought its processors for more meaningful purposes, which tend to bring global changes. Chief Technology Officer, Michael Kagan, said during an interview, sharing the perception towards cryptocurrencies, that they are useless to society.

Conversely, Kagan compared crypto to another emerging technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI). He said AI chatbots like ChatGPT, using the processing power of their chips, makes it more worthwhile than using them for mining crypto.