Intel Launched New BTC Mining Chips Centered On Sustainability

Intel launched new BTC mining chips that are focused on sustainability and Jack Dorsey’s Block will be among the first companies to buy them so let’s read more in today’s latest Bitcoin news.

Intel launched new BTC mining chips which is a second-generation mining chip that was announced in February. The chip features a 580 GH/s hash rate and consumes 26J/TH making it much more efficient. The hash rate measures how fast the miner can generate answers to the next BTC block while the joules per terahsah measure how much energy is consumed to produce each terahash which is 1 trillion hashes.

For comparison, Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro+ delivers a hash rate of 198 TH/s while consuming 27.5 J/TH while MicroBT’s Whatsminer M30++ related specs are 112 TH/s at 31 J/TH. The chip was built with focused energy on sustainability in the context of ESG concerns that can plague the industry later. For example, Ripple’s co-founder is backing the campaign to end BTC mining entirely which consumes more energy than the entire country of Norway.

These energy-related fears are influencing the policymakers and last month, the EU tabled a de-facto ban on BTC mining as a part of the crypto regulation package and the lawmakers rejected the version of the bill which included the mention of a PoW ban in a 32-33 vote. Vice President Balaji Kanigcherla said:

“To power this new era of computing, Intel is delivering solutions that can offer an optimal balance of hashing throughput and energy efficiency regardless of a customer’s operating environment.”

The chip includes on-chip temperature and voltage sensing capabilities as well as support for 256 integrated circuits per chain but none of them are part of Intel’s original Bonanza Mine process. Because of the nature of the silicon being used, the company claims it will be supplied in volume without having to compromise the supply of new CPUs and GPUs.

As recently reported, Intel as the world’s second-biggest semiconductor chip maker TSMC scheduled a presentation under “Highlighted Chip Releases at the ISSCC conference. It presented an upcoming chip for the blockchain identity dubbed Bonanza Mine processor and described it as an ultra-low voltage energy efficient BTC mining ASIC. Among the major clients that evinced interest in the new processor chip is Block Inc, formerly known as Square.