Block (formerly Square) is building an open bitcoin mining system as it continues to expand beyond its core payments business and embraces CEO Jack Dorsey's passion for crypto.
Having initially floated the idea in October, Dorsey has now tweeted confirmation that the bitcoin mining plan is going ahead.
In a tweet thread, Block general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton, says: "We want to make mining more distributed and efficient in every way, from buying, to set up, to maintenance, to mining. We’re interested because mining goes far beyond creating new bitcoin. We see it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless."
Templeton says Block has been investigating the customer pain points and technical challenges faced with bitcoin mining and how these can be addressed. The company is building out a core engineering team to work on the system.