Intel ends its bitcoin mining chip series

(Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp said on Tuesday it has discontinued production of its bitcoin mining chip series, just a year after its introduction.

A rout in the cryptocurrency market hurt some chip companies including Nvidia Corp, whose high-end graphics chips became popular for crypto mining.

Intel expects to stop taking orders for the series, called Blockscale, by October 20 this year and end shipping by April 20 next year, according to a document 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," a company spokesperson said.

IDM 2.0 refers to Intel's strategy to outsource its chip making to outside customers, while it continues to ramp up its own production of smaller and faster chips.

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

Argo Blockchain, Block Inc, Hive Blockchain Technologies and GRIID Infrastructure were Intel's first customers for the chips.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

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