ESG-focused mining company HIVE is the latest organization to sign a deal with Intel. It joins Block, Argo Blockchain and GRIID, as the first customers and testers of the giant’s new ASICs. Intel’s Bonanza Mine project is quickly becoming one of bitcoin’s stories of the year. It’s funny that no one has seen the equipment until now. However, the idea of a bitcoin miner made in the US is appealing. In addition, the rollout of the project has been masterful so far.
The headline here is that “HIVE owns state-of-the-art green energy powered data center facilities in Canada, Sweden and Iceland, where we source only green energy for mining.” In a recent press release, the company announced the Intel deal and its intention to expand into the US. “The company plans a 100 MW deployment at one of Compute North’s renewable energy campuses in Texas.”
HIVE called itself “the first cryptocurrency mining company with a green energy and ESG strategy”. Another important feature of the company is that they are keepers. “Since early 2021, HIVE has kept the majority of its ETH and BTC coin mining rewards in safe storage.” That’s consistent with new data showing that miners are quietly accumulating bitcoin while the market bleeds†
BTC Price Chart for 03/08/2022 on Capital.com | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
What do we know about HIVE’s deal with Intel?
Not much, actually. “HIVE has entered into a supply agreement with Intel, one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, for their forthcoming blockchain accelerator.” Note how HIVE calls the ASICs “blockchain accelerators”, just like: Intel did in the company’s blog† Will the name catch on?
The press release does not specify how many bitcoin miners will buy HIVE, but it does provide some pertinent data:
“These miners are expected to be delivered over a one-year period beginning in the second half of calendar 2022, with the effect, when all installed, an expected increase of up to 95% in our total Bitcoin mining hashrate. of 1.9 exahash per second.”
It also quotes HIVE president Aydin Kilic as saying of the deal:
“After months of careful planning, we are very excited to take this step forward with a global technology leader like Intel. HIVE is committed to implementing these next-generation blockchain accelerators into its green energy infrastructure.”
The ESG aspect of the whole endeavor is another important point here.
Bitcoin is getting greener and greener
Recently, GRIID’s stuffing with the SEC revealed several features of Intel’s new bitcoin miners. As always, Coin-Crypto got you the 411:
“When the world first heard about Intel’s ASIC ambitions, the company smartly described the machines as “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient.” How efficient will they actually be? Tom’s hardware answers:
“According to the list, the performance of the BMZ2 weighs in at 135 TH/s with an efficiency of 26 J/TH. In addition, the miner costs about half the cost of a competing Bitmain S19 Pro, while being 15% more efficient, rivaling the best hardware on the market from competing companies.
Would 15% really make that much of a difference? If it can match the S19 Pro, it would. And Intel wouldn’t be making so much noise if they didn’t have a winner on their hands, right? Perhaps HIVE’s president, Aydin Kilic, can shed some light on that:
“Intel’s energy-efficient and high-performance blockchain accelerator is expected to reduce our power consumption over the current ASIC miners on the market. HIVE will participate in the system development process from design verification to the prototype phases, then factory and test engineering regimes to arrive at a production model; we are well positioned and excited to undertake the process ahead.”
That’s right, the first few customers will help test and develop Intel’s final product. That makes sense in the world. Let’s wish them luck because an ASIC miner made in the USA would definitely help break Bitmain’s quasi-monopoly. The bitcoin ecosystem needs more decentralization in that regard.
Featured Image: HIVE’s logo, screenshot from this video † Charts by Trading Display