Chief Executive Officer of the payment provider, Square, Jack Dorsey has announced the firm is considering developing Bitcoin mining hardware. Dorsey made this known in a series of posts on Twitter last Friday.
According to him, the company is looking to develop a “bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon.” This is expected to improve accessibility and increase the power efficiency of the operation.
Should the company decide to go ahead, he also noted that it will be patterned after its hardware wallet model. The implication of this is that the mining system will be built in the open with community collaboration.
Hardware lead, Jesse Dorogusker, and his team would spearhead the project according to Dorsey. Dorogusker in his tweet stated, “We will incubate the bitcoin mining system project inside Square’s hardware team, starting with architecture, design, and prototyping of more efficient silicon, hashing algorithms, and power architectures.”
Jack Dorsey believes mining bitcoin should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source.
Implications for Bitcoin Mining
The announcement comes at a time when the United States is now the leading hub of cryptocurrency miners. Previously, China led the mining of bitcoin.
Following the crackdown on mining and transactions by regulators in the country, figures Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance found that this has changed. From about 75% in 2019, China’s global share of Bitcoin mining has dropped to about zero today.
Despite the ban on mining in China, several other countries are seeking alternate ways to obtain clean energy for mining. TheCoinrise earlier reported how miners are considering going nuclear as the search for clean energy intensifies.
Regardless, the global crypto mining hardware market is expected to grow by $2.8 billion at a compounded annual rate of over 7% from 2020-2024, according to market research firm Technavio.
A custom-designed unit as Square is proposing could hugely impact the bitcoin mining process. Currently, Bitcoin’s energy consumption is just below 0.5% of the global total electricity production.
However, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, “A custom-designed unit will reduce Bitcoin’s vast power consumption further.”
