Intel Announces the End of Bitcoin Mining Chip Series Blockscale

Chipmaker Intel Corp. has announced the end of its Bitcoin mining chip series Blockscale, only a year after its introduction.

The turmoil in the cryptocurrency market has affected some chipmakers as well, including Nvidia Corp, whose high-end graphics cards are popular in cryptocurrency mining activities.

Intel expects to stop accepting orders for Blockscale by Oct. 20 this year and stop shipping by April 20 next year, according to an announcement 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," said a spokesperson.

IDM 2.0 is Intel's chip making outsourcing strategy. Outsourcing chip making to outside customers while continuing to devote to smaller, faster chip production themselves.

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

(Source: Reuters)