Block, the financial technology payment company owned by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, recently purchased a large number of bitcoin mining chips from Intel, accelerating its plans to enter the mining hardware market.
The acquisition will help it bring mining rigs to market as it focuses on developing its cutting-edge 3nm chips.
Since Intel announced in February 2022 that it would stop producing chips for bitcoin mining application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), it has set a production deadline of April 2024.
Block plans to finalize the design of its 5nm chip for bitcoin mining this quarter and use it as a basis for building machines.
The acquisition means the team can focus on 3nm designs. Block first-party products will launch early next year, according to Block hardware lead Thomas Templeton. When asked about the number of chips they buy, he said that’s more than enough to make up for the time it takes them to design and produce their own 3nm chips.