Block Launches Bitcoin Mining Hardware and Software

Block has launched new bitcoin mining hardware and software designed to decentralize and streamline the process of bitcoin mining.

The new products are offered by Proto Global, a Block brand that offers bitcoin mining products and services, the company said in a Thursday (Aug. 14) press release.

The new hardware, Proto Rig, is a modular bitcoin mining system that allows operators to upgrade individual hashboards without replacing entire units, and lets them do so in seconds, without tools and with the hardware in place, according to the release.

These features make the hardware a “10-year infrastructure investment” rather than a 3-year to 5-year disposable asset, per the release.

“Mining hardware hasn’t really changed in years,” Block Hardware Lead Thomas Templeton said in the release. “Machines break often, are hard to repair, expensive and time-consuming to upgrade, and don’t make the most efficient use of power or space. With Rig, we set out to change all of that — and contribute to hardware decentralization in the process.”

The new software, Proto Fleet, is a free and open-source fleet management software that brings together in one platform power-scaling, monitoring, diagnostics and maintenance tools—functionalities that have historically required separate pieces of software—according to the release.

Proto Fleet is designed to help bitcoin miners streamline operations, maximize uptime and minimize time spent troubleshooting, per the release.

“Mining hasn’t really caught up with advances in software more broadly,” Templeton said in the release. “We saw an opportunity to make mining software something modern that improves operational efficiency instead of unnecessarily complicating things.”

Block Head, Chairman and Co-founder Jack Dorsey said during a Nov. 7 earnings call that the company was transitioning more resources to its Bitkey self-custody bitcoin wallet service and its bitcoin mining projects.

Dorsey said Block was focused on “making bitcoin more accessible and secure for people” and “usable every day.”

“Bitcoin has all the elements necessary to trust it as a currency,” Dorsey said. “Bitcoin mining is going to be very large for us.”

On Nov. 13, Templeton published a blog post introducing Proto and saying its suite of products is focused on “decentralizing both the supply of mining hardware — both chips and rigs — and the distribution of hashrate.”