Canadian crypto miner HIVE Blockchain said on Monday it had signed a deal with chipmaker Intel to buy the company’s new ASIC chips for use in building mining equipment. HIVE said the deal was part of its plan to expand into the United States.
The company also announced a preliminary deal with mining infrastructure provider Compute North to host 100 megawatts of mining capacity at a renewable energy facility in Texas.
Intel deal to nearly double HIVE’s BTC mining rate
HIVE said the new equipment will be delivered starting from the second half of 2022, and when installed, will boost its Bitcoin mining hash rate by up to a whopping 95%. The miner said it had also tied up with an original design manufacturer to build custom equipment incorporating Intel’s chips.
Hive currently mines Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. Its combined liquid BTC and ETH holdings had a gross value of about $168 million, as of December 31.
Intel had marked its first foray into blockchain technology when it unveiled the new chips last month. The chipmaker claimed that the new silicon chips would perform over 1000 times better than existing hardware used in mining.
Intel also said that Argo Blockchain, and Jack Dorsey’s BLOCK Inc would be the first to receive the new chips later this year. ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, are a type of chips built with very specific applications in mind, in this case being crypto mining.
Hive expands into the United States
HIVE’s deal with Compute North marks its first move into the United States, the company said. The operation will be powered entirely by renewable energy, given recent concerns over crypto mining’s carbon footprint.
Last year, the company had gained a U.S. stock listing on the Nasdaq exchange. Its primary listing is in Canada, on the Toronto exchange. The firm currently has data centers in Canada, Sweden and Greenland.
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