Block Completes Prototype Design for 5nm Bitcoin Mining Chip to Decentralize Supply of Mining Rigs

Block, the financial services and technology company owned by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has announced the completion of the prototype design of its new five-nanometer (5nm) Bitcoin mining chip, which it claims is key to decentralizing the supply of Bitcoin mining rigs. Developing Bitcoin mining ASIC rigs is financially and technically challenging, resulting in the excessive concentration of custom bitcoin mining silicon in the hands of a few companies. Block deems this centralization harmful to both miners and the Bitcoin network as a whole. Block plans to make Bitcoin mining technology open source, selling standalone ASICs and other hardware components to optimize innovation and maximize the size of the Bitcoin mining hardware ecosystem.

The steps taken over the past few months will allow the company to experiment with new designs and bring more efficient and affordable Bitcoin mining chips to market. To fast-track this development push, Block has purchased a large batch of ASIC chips from Intel. Intel announced on April 18 that it would halt taking new orders for its Blockscale 1000 Series ASICs by October 20 and end shipping in April 2024 as part of cost-cutting measures. Block says this large intake of ASICs from Intel will help accelerate the development of its proprietary 3nm chip, which it claims, upon its release, would be the most advanced chip to date.

The scale of a nanometer (1nm) is approximately equivalent to the width of two silicon atoms. As parts of the chips become smaller, it allows for more transistors to fit into a silicon die of the same size. By reducing the overall size, the electric current travels less distance in the circuit to perform a calculation, which means that overall efficiency is improved, and the amount of heat produced is decreased.

Currently, most Bitcoin mining ASICs run on 5nm chips; however, no company has made their ASIC chip designs open source. It's worth noting that 5nm ASIC chips have been around for some time, with the earliest 5nm ASIC being released in 2021 from Chinese mining firm Canaan.

ASIC stands for "application-specific integrated circuit" and refers to a computerized device that is optimized to complete a single computational function and is typically used for mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.