The price for Bitcoin might have dipped under $10,000, but the cryptocurrency leader is not slowing down anytime soon. As we stated previously, dips in Bitcoin prices are not a reason to panic.
Samsung has partnered with a Chinese Bitcoin mining company to start producing specialized bitcoin mining chips.
The report comes from the South Korean news outlet The Bell, which cites anonymous executives inside Samsung. The company then confirmed the report for Techcrunch.
“Samsung’s foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips. However, we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customers.”
The Samsung bitcoin mining chips, also known as ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), have been long rumored and speculated upon.
Right now, more than 70% of this mining market is owned by China-based Bitmain, a company which sells ASICs around the world. Bitmain’s cheapest ASIC, the Antminer A3, starts at around $1000, so, presumably, that will be the starting price point for the Samsung ASIC.
If Samsung enters the arena, the competition could be a boon for Bitcoin miners around the world, making ASICs more affordable.
However, all the reports and rumors point to Samsung specifically partnering with large-scale operations, not offering ASICs for small-time miners.
Just last year, Samsung demo-ed a bitcoin mining rig made entirely from old smartphones running Android.
In the winter, the company was rumored to have partnered with Baikal, a Russian bitcoin mining company, to produce exclusive ASICs.
The question is, can Samsung become a notable competitor for players like Bitmain or Canaan? Even if not, the endeavor will be profitable nonetheless. Samsung already creates chips for GPUs used in Bitcoin mining and this step is essentially cutting out the middleman.
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