What is an ASIC?

ASIC stands for "Application Specific Integrated Circuit".

It is a circuit board that is designed for a specific purpose.

It is unlike CPUs(Central Processing Units) and GPUs(Graphic Processing Units), which are what you would find in your average computer. These are designed to handle a variety of computational tasks.

If CPUs and GPUs are jacks-of-all-trades, ASICs are the specialists.

They are programmed to have laser focus on repetitive tasks.

This is why Bitcoin miners use them.

Bitcoin mining currently involves generating trillions of hashes every second in the attempt to find a valid hash. This is possible with an ASIC mining machine.

When Bitcoin first started in 2009, CPUs were used for mining. GPUs were later discovered to be more efficient until in 2013 when ASICs became the standard.

In summary:

• An ASIC is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit.
• At the time of writing, ASICs are a standard in the Bitcoin mining industry.