Intel Patents Solution that Reduces Bitcoin Mining Power Consumption
Lately, there have been several controversies regarding the high quantity of electricity that mining bitcoin requires. In an effort to reduce electricity consumption associated with mining digital currencies, Intel has recently filed a patent for a bitcoin mining hardware accelerator.
The prototype would work by reducing both the space and electricity consumed by mining hardware. It is worth pointing out the fact that the patent was originally filed on the 23rd of September 2017, and it meant to help solve a couple of challenges for miners, by searching through the whole nonce space via brute force protocols, while concomitantly reducing energy consumer per each hash. Additionally, the original patent stated that it is capable of increasing chip performance per each watt unit.
Intel believes that all of this and more can be achieved by further optimizing the ‘critical paths in the computation intensive message digest and scheduler data paths’. In return, this will bring about some extra time that can then ‘reduce switching capacitance or scale the supply voltage’. Lastly, this will provide miners with a 35% computational improvement that will also be felt through reduced energy consumption. The patent update introduced a few more tech gizmos which would make chip implementation easier for those who are interested. Do keep in mind the fact that Intel has not released a product yet, and only ensured their intellectual property rights for the idea.
To put things better into perspective, it is believed that products capable of reducing mining energy consumption are essential for cryptocurrency mining to continue at a sustainable and eco-friendly level. Additionally, many referred to bitcoin’s energy consumption as an environmental disaster, or an endeavour which could otherwise power households for a couple of weeks.
The patent application published by Intel states that the technology could be applied to ASIC chips, for added convenience. However, they do surprisingly mention that other alternatives could be viable, despite the lack of patent.
Intel has been involved in the crypto and blockchain industries for a while now, as back in 2017, the chip company announced the beginning of a partnership with a Chinese technology firm, which would result in the development of an Internet of Things Blockchain Service.