Intel Discontinues Bitcoin Mining Chip Series

Chipmaking heavyweight Intel (INTC) is ending production of its bitcoin mining chip series, the company said in a statement to CoinDesk on Tuesday.

"As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC [application specific integrated circuit] while we continue to support our Blockscale customers," an Intel spokesperson said.

The news was first reported by Tom's Hardware.

No orders will be taken after Oct. 20 and the last product will be shipped no later than April 20, 2024, according to a document on Intel's website.

The company announced its foray into bitcoin mining about a year ago, with its first customers for the chips, dubbed Blockscale, being Argo Blockchain (ARBK), Block (SQ), Griid Infrastructure and Hive Blockchain (HIVE).

Since then only Hive has confirmed the installation of mining rigs powered by Intel chips. None of the companies responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Argo's partner, ePIC Blockchain, is promoting its own bitcoin mining machines using the Intel semiconductors.

Intel's chips could have broken an effective duopoly in the market dominated by Bitmain and MicroBT. The company continues to "monitor market opportunities," the spokesperson said, when asked whether Intel might come up with a new project.

CORRECTION (April 19, 2023 15:10 UTC): Fixes the spelling of the Intel chip's name.