Intel Abandons Bitcoin Mining Chip Production After One Year

Intel has discontinued its Blockscale series of ASICs designed for energy-efficient blockchain hashing, including bitcoin mining, just a year after its announcement. The company has no immediate plans to introduce any upgrades or replacements, but will continue to support companies that have already purchased Blockscale chips. The project came from Intel's Custom Compute Group, which was folded into Intel's existing client computing and data center teams in December. Intel cited a focus on its foundry business and IDF 2.0 strategy as reasons for discontinuing the Blockscale chips.