eSi-BTC: an energy efficient Bitcoin mining core

Abstract

Bitcoin is the most well-adopted cryptocurrency today. As of 2022, it is estimated that around US$ 4 billion are transacted daily within the Bitcoin network. Optimizing the energy expenditure of Bitcoin mining is of interest to several parties, such as end-users, who make transactions on the Bitcoin network with lower fees, miners themselves, who increase mining profits due to lower operational costs, and government regulation bodies, who minimize the environmental and power-grid impacts of mining. In this work we present a Bitcoin mining core employing several optimizations and design techniques that aim to maximize energy efficiency. Results in a 6 nm technology node show a 33% improvement in energy efficiency when compared to the state-of-the-art implementation.