Intel has unveiled its own chip for mining. What’s its particularity?

February 22, 2022 by cryptobreak

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At this year’s International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Intel shared technical details of its first-generation Bonanza Mine (BMZ1) chip. The technology giant also unveiled a new 3,600W crypto farm consisting of 300 BMZ1 chips. These are expected to be a power-saving alternative to the usual ASIC miners, which are designed to mine Bitcoin and first cryptocurrency-based coins. We tell you more about what’s going on.

Bitcoin mining has been a very popular activity of late. To clearly demonstrate this fact, just take a look at a graph of the network’s hash rate for the year, i.e. its total computing power. Here it is.

Bitcoin network hashrate graph for the year

The image shows the collapse of the index, which began in late spring 2021 and ended by mid-summer. The reason for the slump was the ban on cryptocurrency mining in China, which was issued just in the spring. Because of this, the BTC hash rate sagged to its local low of 69 hashes per second – they were recorded on 28 June 2021.

Since then, the figure has not only increased, but also set a new record. We are talking about 263 hashes, which was reached on February 12, 2022, a week and a half ago.

Bitcoin network hash rate record

The popularity of mining is also observed among altcoins. This is confirmed by the 2Miners pool. Today there are more than 127 thousand miners mining on it. A year ago there were only 30 thousand of them.

2Miners mining pool figures

Now other giants are joining the cryptocurrency mining niche.

Technical specifications of the chip from Intel

BMZ1 is designed as a special purpose integrated circuit or ASIC that means it can mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with SHA-256 encryption. It is important to note, however, that earlier this month, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger spoke out about the negative impact of mining on the environment. He presented his options to address this issue, one of which is expected to be the new chip.

Overall, the BMZ1 is expected to save a huge amount of power. The 300 chips in a single 3,600 watt mining farm produce a hash rate of around 40 terahash per second. Just to compare, the most powerful ASIC-miner Antminer S19 Pro+ Hyd has a hash rate of 198 terrahes per second, but consumes 5445 watts of power.

Let’s calculate the approximate profitability of the aforementioned BMZ1 crypto farm at an electricity price of $0.05 per kilowatt. It turns out that at the current Bitcoin price, the farm will generate around $70 per month.

Projected profits from Intel’s crypto farm

According to news outlet Decrypt, the first batches of BMZ1 have already received several large orders. Intel’s customers include Block, a company founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Part of the crypto farm with BMZ1 chips

And that’s not all: apparently Intel is already mulling a second generation chip. According to a financial filing from mining startup Griid, Intel has partnered with it. Among the terms of the deal is a collaboration to create a new version of the BMZ2 chip.

We think Intel's involvement in cryptocurrency mining looks interesting, as the industry is essentially being recognised by a growing number of global giants. On top of that, there is a noticeable desire of the producer to limit the use of electricity in BTC mining, which was the reason for serious criticism of the coin mining niche the day before. Apparently, in the future, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mining based on the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm will become greener than ever, i.e. environmentally friendly.

What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. There we will talk about other topics related to the blockchain industry and decentralisation.