New Intel ASIC chip designed for bitcoin mining dives deeply into relative computations.

Intel is officially in the bitcoin mining business. The gargantuan technology company announced its "ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient" ASIC chip a mere six months ago, and it's already here. Under normal circumstances, support from a multinational company like Intel would be huge for the bitcoin market. How will it respond to all this chaos? Will it react at all? The news didn't immediately have much of an impact, but its long term effect remains to be seen.

Raja Koduri, the senior vice president of Intel's Architecture, Graphics and Software (IAGS) division, has recently tweeted: 

“Intel AXG Custom Compute team is now shipping the Blockscale ASIC! First product will always be unforgettable, congratulations team. Excited to see how Argo, Griid and Hive improvise around Blockscale and our open design.”

   The list is missing BLOCK, Jack Dorsey's company. Does that mean something or is BLOCK just fourth on the list? Three months ago, Bitcoinist quoted Raja Koduri saying:

“Our blockchain accelerator will ship later this year. We are engaged directly with customers that share our sustainability goals. Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square) and GRIID Infrastructure are among our first customers for this upcoming product.”

Bitcoin miners have been responding to Intel's announcement

Argo also went with the simple route and tweeted. "Thanks, Raja Koduri and Intel. We are excited to be innovating with these new ASIC chips in our custom immersion mining rigs." That new player, ePIC Blockchain Technologies produces self-proclaimed "North American Designed ASIC RIGs". So, innovation and customization are on the way.

Raja Koduri’s words when Intel's bitcoin mining experiment started are as follows: "Intel is not in the business of mining Bitcoin."

“Today, we at Intel are declaring our intent to contribute to the development of blockchain technologies, with a roadmap of energy-efficient accelerators. Intel will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way.”  

As we move on to the next section, keep in mind that statement.

Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, has been ridiculed by the mainstream media for his comments about the future of microprocessors.

When something related to bitcoin does not meet the mainstream media’s expectations, they are quick to criticize it. And this bear market gives them plenty of material to attack the technology and billion-dollar industry that surrounds it. Luckily, bitcoin doesn't care; in the first article about Intel shipping its Blockscale ASIC chips ahead of time, The Register starts with valuable information:

“Blockscale is shipping a couple days ahead of Intel’s previously stated release window for the third quarter, which begins Friday. Even if it’s a tiny head start, it is nonetheless an achievement for a corporation that is becoming notoriously under-schedule across multiple products, including the Sapphire Rapids server chips and the discrete Arc GPUs.”

The authors of the piece in question, who were previously attacking Bitcoin and Intel, now turn their fire on crypto traders. To do so, they start with this:

“Experts and company officials are warning that the world of blockchain-fueled digital currencies is entering a crypto winter, a period where the value of virtual coins plunge and remain low. This last happened between early 2018 and mid-2020.”

The article then moves on to describe the market's condition, instead of discussing Intel's SEG energy-efficient plans. Or the company's well-executed rollout strategy during these last few months. Or that bitcoin is our only hope as a species.