Biden Loves Intel’s Plan To Produce Semiconductors. What About Bitcoin Mining?

Intel played a big role in President Biden ’s State of the Union address. He highlighted the company’s plan to manufacture semiconductor chips in Ohio, and said, “Make more cars and semiconductors in America. More infrastructure and innovation in America.” Was he secretly approving Intel’s plan to produce ASIC bitcoin miners? Or did he not know that those semiconductors are an integral part of those machines?

Make no mistake, semiconductor chips or integrated circuits are an integral part of almost every technological device around you. And Intel is a huge company with many products and many clients. Those semiconductors Intel is planning to produce will go everywhere. However, there’s no denying that ASICs are a big part of the company’s future plans.

Recently, NewsBTC quoted Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger saying:

“Intel is about to bring forward a blockchain chip that’s dramatically better. That is orders of magnitude better in terms of power performance. So, we’re helping solve the climate issue.” 

Exaggerations aside, Pat Gelsinger was a big part of President Biden ‘s State of the Union address the other day.

What Did President Biden Say About Intel?

One of Biden ‘s big success stories was Intel’s $20B investment in Ohio. The plant they plan to build will manufacture semiconductor chips. There’s a global shortage for those, and more than 170 industries depend on them. Nowadays, China, South Korea, and Taiwan are the main producers of integrated circuits. And those factories are working full time to fulfill an ever-increasing demand.

Enter Ohio. As The Columbus Dispatch put it:

“Intel plans to employ 3,000 workers at an average salary of $135,000. The project is also expected to create 7,000 construction jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs.”

They also quote President Biden channeling his inner poet:

“If you travel 20 miles east of Columbus, Ohio, you’ll find 1,000 empty acres of land. It won’t look like much, but if you stop and look closely, you’ll see a ‘field of dreams,’ the ground on which America’s future will be built.”

And then and there, he mentioned Pat Gelsinger by name, as the man to make it happen. President Biden didn’t mention bitcoin mining, though.

BTC price chart for 03/03/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
The U.S.’s Plan To Manufacture Semiconductors

The global chip shortage presents an obvious opportunity, and the U.S. wants to take advantage of it. Intel´s play is part of a bigger move. In the article “Bitcoin Mining And The Global Semiconductor Shortage Are On A Collision Course,” security expert Shinobi informed us:

“The United States Senate has recently passed the “U.S. Innovation and Competition Act,” which will spend $52 billion dollars on increasing domestic semiconductor fabrication capacity, and the “CHIPs for America Act” being introduced in the Senate to create income tax credit for semiconductor companies.”

So, Intel is going to benefit from all of that. Plus, they´re going to use those semiconductor chips to aggressively step into the bitcoin mining business. A business traditionally controlled by Chinese companies Bitmain and MicroBT. Can Intel compete with them? According to a recent SEC filing NewsBTC reported on, they can:

“When the world first heard about Intel’s ASIC ambitions, the company cleverly described the machines as “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient.” How efficient will they actually be? Tom’s hardware answers:

“According to the listing, BMZ2’s performance weighs in at 135 TH/s with 26 J/THs of efficiency. Additionally, the miner is roughly half the cost of a competing Bitmain S19 Pro while being 15% more efficient, rivaling the best hardware on the market from competing companies.”

To better understand the plan, let’s quote Shinobi once again:

“The dynamics of who can and can’t produce semiconductors in general is already coming to the forefront of politics as nations realize the importance of minimizing reliance on foreign actors to maintain such capacity. It is only a matter of time before how these issues relate to Bitcoin mining starts to come to their attention as well.”

President Biden And Intel Are Not Playing Around

As you can see, both President Biden and Intel have an ambitious game plan. Is bitcoin mining a part of the plan? In Intel’s case, the answer is an obvious yes. On the other hand, Joe Biden didn´t even mention the topic in his speech. It was always there in the background, though. At least according to us.

Let’s close with another quote from Biden ‘s State of the Union address:

“I have a better plan to fight inflation. Lower your costs, not your wages. Make more cars and semiconductors in America. More infrastructure and innovation in America.”

That’s great, but… about that “plan to fight inflation”… what about stopping the rampant money printing?

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Intel ‘s ASIC Bitcoin Miner Will Cost Half, Be 15% More Effective Than Most S19s

Will the Intel ASIC disrupt the Bitcoin mining game? If Tom’s Hardware numbers are correct, the answer is an unequivocally yes. “The company’s mining hardware could have the best price-to-performance ratio on the market,” says Tom. However, there’s no guarantee that the prices that Intel gave to mining company GRIID will be the same as a general consumer will get.

In fact, there’s no guarantee that GRIID is talking about the Intel Bonanza Mine in the SEC documents that this report follows. “A recent SEC filing by one of Intel’s premier partners has revealed both the pricing and performance of Intel’s second-gen Bonanza Mine (BMZ2) Bitcoin miners.” A couple of weeks ago, NewsBTC reported on Intel’s first batch of clients:

“We can’t prove it, but, all of these companies probably knew years ago about Intel’s plans to release a bitcoin mining chip. Again, Raja Koduri:

“Our blockchain accelerator will ship later this year. We are engaged directly with customers that share our sustainability goals. Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square) and GRIID Infrastructure are among our first customers for this upcoming product.”

And in the SEC filing, GRIID talks about a “Distinguishing Supply Agreement With Leading U.S. Based Chip Designer.” Who else could they be talking about, considering that both Bitmain and MicroBT are China-based? It has to be Intel, right?

What Does The SEC Filling Reveal About The Intel Bonanza Mine?

When the world first heard about Intel’s ASIC ambitions, the company cleverly described the machines as “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient.” How efficient will they actually be? Tom’s hardware answers:

“According to the listing, BMZ2’s performance weighs in at 135 TH/s with 26 J/THs of efficiency. Additionally, the miner is roughly half the cost of a competing Bitmain S19 Pro while being 15% more efficient, rivaling the best hardware on the market from competing companies.”

That puts it at the top of the food chain in terms of power; “second only to Bitmain’s S19j XP system,” and that’s “by a small margin.” However, Intel’s ASIC is also 15% more efficient. “Peak performance for the BMZ2 system weighs in at a competitive 135 TH/s. A bit of basic math reveals the system runs at approximately 3510W.”

BTC price chart for 01/03/2022 on BinanceUS | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Perfect, But, How Expensive Will It Be?

When it comes to pricing, that’s where Intel’s new machines shine. Since they will presumably be manufactured in the U.S.A., Intel won’t have to deal with “the 25% tariffs for products that originate in China and are exposed to the volatility associated with a longer supply chain.” So, the company’s positioned to win in the west. 

Ok, but, how much will the ASICs actually cost? Tom’s Hardware again:

“GRIID says the new Intel mining systems cost $5,625 per miner. Given that GRIID has guaranteed access to 25% of Intel’s production capacity, we expect the company to benefit from volume pricing. In either case, that’s roughly half the price of the $10,455 Bitmain S19j Pro, but it’s noteworthy that pricing for the S19j Pro can fluctuate wildly.”

Will the general consumer get the same price as GRIID? Probably not. But the number seems promising. And their clients won’t have to wait for their ASICs to arrive from China.

Conclusions And Questions

Last week, NewsBTC quoted Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger trying to promote the company’s new product:

“Intel is about to bring forward a blockchain chip that’s dramatically better. That is orders of magnitude better in terms of power performance. So, we’re helping solve the climate issue.” 

Are these specs enough to solve climate change? Is a 15% efficiency going to stop global warming? Probably not. It’s a massive improvement, but, maybe Gelsinger shouldn’t have made such a big promise. 

In the quoted SEC filing, GRIID lists the company’s competitive advantages. One of those is, “Chip supply agreement with U.S. Fortune 50 company ensures unrivaled mining hardware access.” Chances are that the deal GRIID made with Intel is going to increase in importance as time goes by. If the machines are as good as the specs suggest, that is.

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Intel To Present Low Voltage, Energy Efficient Bitcoin Mining Chip At Conference

This could be huge. Intel plans to enter the Bitcoin mining space with a cleverly marketed “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient” ASIC chip. Considering that the chip shortage severely delayed the next generation of ASIC miners, this is tremendous. And, more importantly, it opens up the door for Bitcoin miners manufacturing in the USA. And in the rest of the Western world, even. 

Related Reading | Why Did China Ban Bitcoin Mining? Here Are The Seven Leading Theories

In December, Raja Koduri hinted at Intel’s intention to get into the Bitcoin mining space. Even though he’s the chief architect and senior vice president of Intel’s architecture, graphics and software division, no one expected Intel to deliver so soon. 

Intel jumping into the #Bitcoin mining ASIC manufacturing is a huge. We need way more chip fab in the USA. It will result in:

– Improved National Security– Supply Chain robustness

And it will also result in less reliance on Taiwan, who is being threatened by China aggression.

— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) January 18, 2022

Details are scarce. There’s nothing on Intel’s official site. A quick search reveals that “Access to additional search results for “bonanza” is restricted”. However, we have the 411 on the project that goes by the code name “Bonanza Mine.”

What Do We Know About Intel ’s “Bonanza Mine”?

The product will be an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC.” According to Tom’s Hardware, the page that broke the news, Intel will reveal their new chip at:

“The ISSCC conference is a yearly gathering of the best and brightest minds in the chip industry. This year, Intel has a presentation scheduled in the ‘Highlighted Chip Releases’ category to outline a new “Bonanza Mine” processor, a new chip described as an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC.”

Apparently, Intel has been developing the product since at least 2018, when they registered “a patent for a specialized processing system that uses an optimized SHA-256 datapath.”According to Tom’s Hardware, “Intel has a wealth of experience in hardware-assisted SHA-256 algorithms due to the use of these instructions in its CPU products.” 

This is huge news!

More competition in the hardware mining sector is welcome 🔥 pic.twitter.com/C7I1FQJxH6

— Dan Held (@danheld) January 18, 2022

A more recent indication of the company’s intentions came when the already mentioned Intel executive Raja Koduri “appeared on popular streamer Dr. Lupo’s show.” He told him point-blank:

“Being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost, much lower power, is a pretty solvable problem. And you know, we are working on that, and at some point in time, hopefully not too far into the future, we will kinda share some interesting hardware for that.”

BTC price chart for 01/18/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Why Is This Development Important?

Until now, ASIC Bitcoin miners manufacturing is controlled by Bitmain and Microbt, with Canaan, Strongu, and Ebang handling a minority of the market. All of those companies are Chinese. The chips are all made in Taiwan and South Korea. This poses a centralization problem for the Bitcoin network that seemed unsolvable until Intel’s soft announcement.

Now, the open-source Bitcoin miner that Jack Dorsey’s Block is working on makes a lot more sense. Theoretically, the silicon chip is the only part of an ASIC machine that can’t be bought in a hardware store. With that problem solved, by no less than an industry leader with immense manufacturing power, the sky’s the limit. If this whole thing materializes, expect a huge leap forward in the further decentralization of Bitcoin mining. 

Intel, a $220 billion industry leader, is preparing to launch ASIC hardware for bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin is a computer network. Every technology company will eventually plug themselves into it. https://t.co/pbTFiRqx0B

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) January 18, 2022

Also, Intel’s announcement certainly legitimizes Bitcoin mining as a business to watch for the next 100 years. As podcaster Anthony Pompliano said, “Bitcoin is a computer network. Every technology company will eventually plug themselves into it.” With this announcement, Bitcoin not only gets Intel’s seal of approval. The giant company now has skin in the game. 

Related Reading | Intel, Microsoft Took 10+ Years to See Gains, Crypto Investors in Good Position

To close this off, let’s quote Tom’s Hardware one more time:

“For now, it isn’t clear if Intel will release the Bonanza Mine chip as a product for the public or if it remains confined to a research project. However, given that the chip is in the “highlighted Chip Releases: Digital/ML” track and Koduri’s comments, it’s logical to expect that these chips will be offered to customers in the near future.”

So, everything we said is not a done deal just yet. It smells good, though.

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