Intel and its ‘Bonanza Mine’ chip

From time immemorial, the idea of bitcoin and its incorporation as a digital currency has been welcomed by many. Since it has helped to reduce the stress of queuing just to fulfil a transaction at the bank. It has also solved the issue of a third party always prying into the affairs of users. One of the major challenges that this digital currency has faced is the issue of electricity usage. Mining at first consumed a lot of energy and this was not good for the environment. However, developers have devised other strategies to reduce environmental hazards. ASICs were created just for Bitcoin mining. There is more good news. A new chip is about to be introduced that could be a better solution to Bitcoin mining. Read on to discover what it is.

What are ASICs?

ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) is a specialized integrated circuit. It is a British corporation that first used it in 1981 to speed up graphics processing on personal computers. A chip that performs a specific number of operations with higher quality than a board or a chip that performs several functions at once. This significantly speeds up the workflow, making it essential for cost-effective mining of bitcoin, ethereum, and other digital currencies.

Trading operations began on ASICs, rather than personal computers, consisting of a block in a monolithic casing. The block contains a chip, storage, cooling fan, ports for connecting additional peripheral devices. The dimensions of such a block amount to tens of centimeters, facilitated by their high power. At the same time miniature “flash drives” as of today many consider unprofitable for manufacturers due to the fact that miners’ demands are growing, while the speed of USB-device turns out to be too low. ASICs, unlike farms and other devices, rely on hand craftsmanship. This is labor-intensive work and requires considerably more time than farming. Consequently, few cryptocurrency market participants can afford to “make money” with ASICs.

Intel is the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturing company. It has created microprocessors that are found in most personal computers. It also supplies microprocessors to many computer system manufacturers like Lenovo, HP, and Dell. it was founded in July 1968 by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Recently intel mentioned that it will be introducing a new chip that can be used to mine bitcoin.

About the ‘Bonanza Mine’

The news of this chip broke out a few days ago. According to the news, Intel would present a new ‘Bonanza Mine’. It is an ASIC chip designed for ultra-low-voltage and energy-efficient Bitcoin mining. This chip is to be unveiled at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2022. There is also information circulating that crypto-mining start-up GRIID has signed a long-term supply contract with Intel for its ‘BMZ2’ mining ASICs. The Intel supply agreement provides GRIID with fixed pricing for the BMZ2 ASICs for all orders placed prior to May 2023. This agreement gives GRIID 25% off the purchasing price of all Intel-designed ASICs till May 2025. This could bring in some competition as intel will have to compete with its own specialized ASIC for Bitcoin mining.

In conclusion, this chip is designed to provide energy sufficiency when mining Bitcoin. The conference in February however, does not tell whether Intel will be presenting a sample of this chip or not. We are all kept in anticipation.

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Fenui Perpetua, Team bit4you.