Jack Dorsey – the CEO of Block, formerly known as Square – has emerged to say that his firm is moving forward on plans to develop an open bitcoin mining system.
Jack Dorsey Wants a World Where Everyone Can Mine BTC
What does this mean? Basically, all customers of Block will have the opportunity to mine bitcoin and other forms of crypto through a fully accessible system. In a tweet late last week, Dorsey announced:
We’re officially building an open bitcoin mining system.
The company has been planning the system since early October of 2021 and is now looking to move forward in its plans with the goal of making the largest digital currency by market cap “more distributed and efficient.” These words come directly from the firm’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton.
Bitcoin mining is a difficult process in which miners are required to solve complex mathematical equations to add new units of BTC to the blockchain. Once they do so and transactions are validated, they are rewarded with partial BTC blocks that they can add to their personal stashes. However, bitcoin mining has taken a lot of flak over the past two years for allegedly taking up a lot of time and energy, and many environmentalists are worried about where the practice will leave the planet in the future.
Several high-profile individuals have also jumped into the anti-mining argument such as Elon Musk, South African CEO of Tesla. In March of last year, Musk shocked the world when he announced that all Tesla vehicles could be purchased with bitcoin, though this decision was later rescinded when he commented that he was worried about how miners were using their energy and weren’t controlling their emissions enough.
Right now, mining is a very exclusive industry, and according to Templeton, there are a lot of headaches involved that prevent the average person from getting involved. He says:
For most people, mining rigs are hard to find. Once you’ve managed to track them down, they’re expensive and delivery can be unpredictable. How can we make it so that anyone, anywhere, can easily purchase a mining rig? We want to build something that just works. What can we simplify to make this a reality?
Several of these questions are now being discussed at Block, and a team of software designers and engineers are being brought on board to help find the answers. Templeton says:
Developing products is never a solo journey, and evaluating existing tech is always part of our practice.
Getting Rid of the Barricades
Last October, when the company first began developing plans for an open bitcoin mining system, Dorsey sent out the following tweet:
Mining isn’t accessible to everyone. Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source.
Square was one of the first institutional investors of BTC, having purchased more than $170 million worth of the asset between 2020 and 2021.
