Intel Discontinues Production of Bitcoin Mining Chip Series After Crypto Market Rout

Chipmaker Intel said on Tuesday it has discontinued production of its bitcoin mining chip series, just a year after its introduction.

A rout in the cryptocurrency market hurt some chip companies including Nvidia, whose high-end graphics chips became popular for crypto mining.

Intel expects to stop taking orders for the series, called Blockscale, by October 20 this year and end shipping by April 20 next year, according to a document on the company's website.

"As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC while we continue to support our Blockscale customers," a company spokesperson said.

IDM 2.0 refers to Intel's strategy to outsource its chip making to outside customers, while it continues to ramp up its own production of smaller and faster chips.

Intel said it will continue to "monitor market opportunities" in the cryptocurrency space.

Argo Blockchain, Block, Hive Blockchain Technologies and GRIID Infrastructure were Intel's first customers for the chips.

Earlier this year, Intel announced that that it had made broad cuts to employee and executive pay, a week after the company issued a lower-than-expected sales forecast driven by a loss of market share to rivals and a PC market downturn.

The reductions will range from 5 percent of base pay for mid-level employees to as much as 25 percent for Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger, while the company's hourly workforce's pay will not be cut, said a person familiar with the matter who was not authorised to speak publicly.

Intel spokesperson Addy Burr said in a statement that the "changes are designed to impact our executive population more significantly and will help support the investments and overall workforce."

© Thomson Reuters 2023