A little over a year ago, Intel gave a major boost to blockchain technology, announcing that it would start producing “Blockchain accelerator” chips. At that time, cryptocurrencies were on everyone’s lips, NFTs were seen by many as a tool with a great future and, in general, it seemed that we were facing a technological and financial revolution That could mean a big change in many aspects.
That happened in February of last year, so if you have been more or less informed about the evolution of the cryptocurrency market, as well as everything related to NFTs, you already know that many of the expectations have not been met. It is true that blockchains continue to grow in utility, and that every so often we see new implementations of them in all kinds of sectors and activities, but that is the little positive that we can currently point out.
In June of last year, Raja Koduri (yes, that Raja Koduri) announced, through your Twitter account, the launch of the Blockscale 100 ASIC, Intel’s first silicon specifically targeted at strings and data mining. And what happened between the announcement of these silicons and the arrival of the 100 ASIC? Well, the value of Bitcoin had more than halved, from a high of more than $47,000 to less than $19,000. It is true that in recent times its value has partially recovered from that fall, but the long and worrying list of events surrounding this new economy is becoming more worrying every day.
Thus, as reported by Tom’s Hardware, Intel Has Discontinued Its Blockscale Chips for Blockchain. More specifically, and as the technology company has stated to this medium, the company has announced the end of the useful life of its first-generation Blockscale 1000 series chips, without announcing successors for it. Of course, they will maintain support for customers who have purchased one of these silicons, but there are no future plans for this line of chips.
Intel It has not been completely closed to return to this market in the future, but for the moment, and in addition to not announcing a second generation or any other novelty in this regard, it has removed the pages that were dedicated to this platform from its website, which indicates that for now it is a closed door. Something understandable, since the changes that have taken place in the sector in recent times have eroded a large part of the future options that the Blockscale platform had when it was announced.
