Francesco Gardin, chief executive officer of AIM-listed small-cap Quantum Blockchain Technologies PLC (AIM:QBT), thinks he has “cracked the code” in the quest for a competitive edge in Bitcoin (BTC) mining.
But despite his esoteric background as an Italian theoretical physicist graduate, Gardin joined the company board in its previous iteration as Clear Leisure, a company which dealt in something slightly more universal – theme parks; water parks specifically.
Gardin ultimately pivoted Clear Leisure away from theme parks following legal and planning issues, repositioning itself at the forefront of blockchain technology R&D through a binding partnership with Malta-based data centre operator, 64Bit Limited.
In his words, Gardin “cleared the mess” that he came into.
Clear Leisure then announced its internal revolution to the world with a name change in April 2021.
And so, Quantum Blockchain Technologies was born.
As an artificial intelligence and technology boffin, Gardin doesn’t shy away from throwing around arcane terms and concepts when explaining what he hopes to achieve through Quantum Blockchain.
He talks of highly optimised five-nanometre ASIC chips and high-level chip synthesis tools and highly efficient SHA-256 cryptographic hash functions.
But he then uses a simple analogy to cut through the tech speak: “Let’s say that you know how to design the best engine to win the Formula One, but it takes a year and a half to manufacture the engine. However, what if you could use some of the principles and apply them to existing engines,” explains Gardin.
“Then you could boost the performance of existing engines using some of the principles that you could be using to design your own brand.”
One gets a sense that Gardin is attracted to the field of BTC mining due to the current state of how things work, or in his words:
Evidently, he’s a big fan of car-based explanations.
“I get fed up with the main suppliers of miners raising their prices depending on the value of Bitcoin,” Gardin said, adding: “Why are they in a position to do this? What makes them so good that they are the number one supplier on the planet? I’m sure that something can be done.”
The end goal is to optimise existing BTC mining rigs using proprietary algorithms, thus netting miners greater mining rewards (from which Quantum would take a cut).
This would not only benefit the miners but would also lead to fewer computer parts waste and greater energy efficiency.
It’s a strategy that no doubt comes with risk, but the upside potential is huge.
“We are sitting on a potential nuclear bomb,” Gardin exclaimed, pointing out that the tech being developed at Quantum Blockchain aims to be “so fast that it will outpace all other implementations of (current mining algorithm) SHA”.
With some 1.8mln BTC yet to be mined worth some £32bn at today’s prices, you can get an idea of the intrinsic value at play here.
And that’s assuming BTC doesn’t go up in value as markets recover.
Ultimately, Quantum could give an owner of tens of thousands of BTC mining rigs a competitive advantage, while Quantum would bag a slice of those financial gains.