Former Intel engineers made 3 generations of mining ASICs in their fab, under the name 21.co. The first generation was alright, the second generation was middli

Former Intel engineers made 3 generations of mining ASICs in their fab, under the name 21.co. The first generation was alright, the second generation was middling, and the third one was some absurd DRM chip which mined, but enforced mining incomes to be paid to them in part, and it never saw any market usage at all. They had some stupid plan of providing the chips for to free to consumer electronics manufacturers who would use the consumers power to mine for free to them, and the DRM would ensure that 21co got a kickback. Their third chip was absolutely bonkers and could never have been profitable, it used expensive power delivery, packaging which couldn't be cooled except by individual pressure mounted heatsinks directly onto the die, and wasn't even particularly efficient versus the rest of the market. People estimated to me that they were in the order of $10+ just in packaging due to being a FCGBA. Some details might not be completely correct there as it's based on leaked pitch decks and things, but that it was a third generation chip that included DRM is absolutely correct (they provided them as "development" hardware for some hair brained IOT thing so I literally have one).