Intel is creating specialized hardware for Bitcoin mining

Intel Corporation is interested in developing specialty hardware for the mining of Bitcoin, which may help small-time miners once again turn profits.





According to a United States Patent Application released on March 29th, technology giant Intel is interested in creating specialized hardware for Bitcoin mining. The patent application was filed on September 23rd, 2016, and describes a Bitcoin mining hardware accelerator.





According to the filing’s abstract, the patent is for “A System on Chip implementing a Bitcoin mining hardware accelerator [which] may include a processor core and a hardware accelerator coupled to the processor core.” The hardware accelerator is intended to “mine digital currency,” and “may include a first computational block, including a message digest datapath,” as well as “a second computational block.”





In laymen’s terms, Intel’s new hardware would theoretically make Bitcoin mining less energy intensive, and thus more profitable.





itcoin mining is currently dominated by Bitmain Technologies Ltd., a privately owned company headquartered in Beijing, China. In addition to operating several of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pools, Bitmain manufactures ASIC chips and the mining hardware that uses those chips. In 2017, the company raked in somewhere between $3 and $4 billion in profits.





Intel, however, is set to add some competition for Bitmain’s centralized monopoly.





According to the patent filing, the Santa Clara, California-based company has apparently developed a method to reduce “the space utilized and power consumed by Bitcoin mining hardware.”





Bitcoin mining is currently incredibly energy-inefficient and has proven to be less profitable the more the price of Bitcoin decreases. This, in turn, has forced out many small-time miners while increasing the stranglehold on the sector by large-scale operations, such as Bitmain.



