Jack Dorsey: Square weighs developing an open-source Bitcoin miner

Jack Dorsey said that the payments giant Square is considering the possibility of creating an open-source Bitcoin mining device.

1/Mining needs to be more distributed. The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes. True?

— jack⚡️ (@jack) October 15, 2021

From Dorsey’s view, mining should be more decentralized to increase the Bitcoin network’s resilience.

He also called for more efficient use of energy and noted that the limited supply of silicon is concentrated in a few companies.

3/Silicon design is too concentrated into a few companies. This means supply is likely overly constrained. Silicon development is very expensive, requires long term investment, and is best coupled tightly with software and system design. Why aren’t more companies doing this work?

— jack⚡️ (@jack) October 15, 2021

Dorsey pointed to a lack of attention to vertical integration. He believes mining should be simple and accessible to everyone. For this reason, the Square founder is considering removing barriers for miners.

5/Mining isn’t accessible to everyone. Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source. There isn’t enough incentive today for individuals to overcome the complexity of running a miner for themselves. What are the biggest barriers for people running miners?

— jack⚡️ (@jack) October 15, 2021

The initiative will be led by Square’s head of hardware product development, Jesse Dorogusker. Dorsey also urged followers to share thoughts, ideas, concerns, and collaboration proposals.

Our team led by @jessedorogusker will start the deep technical investigation required to take on this project. We’d love your thoughts, ideas, concerns, and collaboration. Should we do this? Why or why not? We’ll update this thread as we make our decisions. And now over to Jesse.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) October 15, 2021

Back in August, Dorsey said he was working on the open TBD platform to build a decentralized exchange on top of his payments company Square.

In July, the company confirmed plans to develop a hardware Bitcoin wallet.

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