Officially, Intel participates in the bitcoin mining industry. Only six months have passed since the enormous technology company unveiled its “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient” ASIC chip, and it is already available. Under normal circumstances, the bitcoin market would benefit greatly from infrastructure support from a large corporation like Intel. In the midst of this chaos, how will it respond? Does it even respond? The immediate impact of the news was minimal, but the long-term impact is still unknown.
Senior vice president of Intel’s Architecture, Graphics and Software (IAGS) division Raja Koduri recently tweeted:
The Blockscale ASIC is now being shipped by the Intel AXG Custom Compute team! Congratulations to the team! The first product will always be memorable. Awaiting with interest to see how Argo, Griid, and Hive adapt to Blockscale and our open design.
The list noticeably omits BLOCK, Jack Dorsey’s business. That’s significant, or is BLOCK simply fourth on the list? Three months ago, Raja Koduri was strongly quoted by Bitcoinist as saying:
“Later this year, our blockchain accelerator will be shipped. We have close relationships with clients who support our sustainability objectives. Our first clients for this upcoming product include Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (previously known as Square), and GRIID Infrastructure.
The Response From Bitcoin Miners To Intel’s Announcement
The first to respond was the environmentally friendly mining company Hive, who tweeted, “HIVE is proud to have partnered with Intel, and we can’t wait to put the new ASICs to good use mining BTC!” The business was much more expressive in a press release NewsBTC cited from a few months ago. When installed, the expected increase in our overall Bitcoin mining hashrate from 1.9 Exahash per second would be up to 95%. These miners are expected to be delivered over the course of a year beginning in the second half of calendar 2022.
Argo also chose a straightforward strategy and tweeted. “Many thanks to Intel and Raja Koduri. With these new ASIC chips in our specialized immersion mining rigs, we’re thrilled to be innovating. We appreciate ePIC Blockchain coming along for the ride. ePIC Blockchain Technologies, a recent competitor, advertises itself as producing “North American Designed ASIC RIGs.” So, innovation and personalization are coming.
Last but not least, let’s recall Raja Koduri’s remarks when Intel’s experiment with bitcoin mining got underway:
With a roadmap of energy-efficient accelerators, Intel today announced its intention to contribute to the advancement of blockchain technologies. In order to advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable manner, Intel will participate in and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem.
As we move on to the next section, keep that statement in mind.
The Media Insults Intel
The mainstream media sees nothing good about bitcoin or anything connected to it. They have the ideal ammunition to attack the technology and the billion-dollar market that surrounds it thanks to the bear market we’re in right now. Fortunately, bitcoin doesn’t mind. The Register begins with important details in the first widely read article about Intel shipping its Blockscale ASIC chips ahead of schedule:
For the third quarter, which starts on Friday, Blockscale is shipping a few days ahead of Intel’s previously announced release window. Even if it is only a small head start, it is still a success for a company that is well known for delivering products late, such as the Sapphire Rapids server chips and the discrete Arc GPUs.
only to begin dumping on Intel and Bitcoiners alike after that. They begin by saying:
“Experts and company representatives are warning that the blockchain-powered digital currency industry is entering a crypto winter, a time when virtual coins’ values plummet and stay low. The most recent instance of this occurred in the middle of 2020.
The market situation is then covered in 1000 words rather than Intel’s plans for SEG energy efficiency. Or the flawless roll-out strategy the business demonstrated over the past few months. Or the fact that bitcoin is the only hope for humanity.
