Block has become a dominant player in the payments ecosystem. But now they have a new obsession: Bitcoin mining hardware.

‍What’s happening:‍

• Block (NYSE: SQ) has announced they plan to significantly deepen their investment into Bitcoin mining chips and hardware development
  

The big idea:‍

• Block previously developed a 3-nanometre Bitcoin mining chip which leverages the most advanced semiconductor technology available to be both energy efficient and high performance
  
• Block now plans to build out more hardware for Bitcoin mining to provide a full scale Bitcoin mining system as well as continuing to build out new chip technology
  

Why it matters:‍

• Block’s founder Jack Dorsey has been a long time outspoken advocate for Bitcoin and has continually made efforts to integrate Bitcoin into every aspect of Block’s operations, including making Bitcoin available in Cash App and Square
  

Going deeper:‍

• Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) was one of the first publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies to announce they would buy Block’s Bitcoin mining chips
  
• Publicly traded Bitcoin miners have been aggressively scaling up their purchase of Bitcoin mining hardware lately with the price of Bitcoin continuing to hit fresh highs, which has led to large scale Bitcoin miners such as CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) making big new purchases

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