James Macedonio: Why Blockstream's ASIC Miner Has Its Own 'Special Sauce'

James Macedonio is a Senior Vice President and Global Head of Mining Sales and Business Development at Blockstream, the leading provider of blockchain technologies. As a seasoned veteran who stayed at the forefront of digital technologies over the last three decades, Macedonio will be one of the Digital Asset and Crypto business leaders participating in Benzinga's exclusive event — Future of Digital Assets on Nov. 14 in New York City.

Bitcoin mining revolves around application-specific integrated circuits that provide computing power to verify transactions on the blockchain. Blockstream team knows all about it since the CEO, Adam Back, invented the algorithm that powers it.

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Although Blockstream has been around since 2014, a broad audience mostly remembers it as a company that went into partnership with Tesla TSLA  and Block SQ to build a solar-powered mining operation in Texas.

Back and Macedonio discussed Blockstream's advantages on the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. They elaborated on the importance of cost control in running such operations.

"We are putting our own little special sauce to build our own ASIC miner, which we are able to tweak exactly the way we want," Macedonio said.

Macedonio’s past leadership roles were at firms like Bear Stearns, AIG, Credit Suisse, Amazon Web Services and Morgan Stanley, where he optimized the bank's data center costs.

Currently, there is an overabundance of supply in the ASIC market, he warns. That’s why prices are low.

"Anyone looking to enter the market now for the first time, there are ASICs in the market that are selling below manufacture costs probably wouldn't be a smart thing to do," he added explaining that Blockstream's advantage lies in its proprietary modular approach, with much better filtration and a proprietary cooling system.

Still, due to oversupply, the Blockstream team is not rushing to put this product onto the market, but rather taking the time to do some extra optimization. According to Back, Blockstream's next-generation ASICs will arrive in the second half of 2024.

Want to gain valuable insights from the pioneers of digital assets who are working on the most exciting Web 3 technologies? Don’t miss the opportunity to connect with founders, investors, and industry experts this November 14th in New York City at The Future of Digital Assets.