Hive using old ethereum rigs, AI to make Ordinals art

Ordinals was introduced early this year, and the buzzy Bitcoin protocol has resulted in a flurry of innovation with the world’s biggest cryptocurrency

Canadian crypto miner HIVE Digital Technologies wants to use Ordinals in one of its artificial intelligence initiatives, carving generative art on Bitcoin’s blockchain with the aid of old Ethereum mining rigs.

HIVE Chief Executive Officer Aydin Kilic explained the project as an exercise in technical expertise for one of crypto’s biggest miners. He told Decrypt that Ordinals provides a new way for the company to use its range of data-centre-grade Nvidia Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which it has been using to mine altcoins after Ethereum shifted to proof-of-stake (PoS) during the “merge” and made miners outdated.

We will create generative artificial intelligence art with our own Graphics Processing Units, on our own tuned up model of Stable Diffusion, and then use our hash power on the Bitcoin network to carve them on the Bitcoin blockchain, Kilic added.

Ordinals was introduced in early 2023, and the buzzy Bitcoin protocol has resulted in a flurry of creativity with the world’s biggest cryptocurrency. As a way for people to create non fungible token-like assets on Bitcoin by “inscribing” data on individual satoshi, equal to 1/100,000,000 of a whole Bitcoin, Ordinals has also been a considerable windfall for Bitcoin miners that benefit from higher transaction fees.

Even though Bitcoin transaction fees from Ordinals inscriptions have dropped over the last couple of months—avidity around BRC-20 tokens, which are built on top of Bitcoin using Ordinals, sent them rocketing—Kilic added HIVE is certainly “still leaning into them.”

Kilic compared the initiative to jet fighter squadrons such as the Blue Angels who display their capability by flying in tight formations. He explained HIVE’s project as aspiring since it uses so many different parts of HIVE’s business, including its cloud computing platforms and custom versions of artificial intelligence models such as Stable Diffusion.

We want to do a soup-to-nuts AI and Ordinals project that is completely integrated, Kilic added. It is a reflection of our key capabilities as a technology leader in the artificial intelligence and Bitcoin space.

Besides creating a digital art pipeline, Kilic said HIVE is working with its custody providers to begin transacting uncommon satoshis found via Ordinals. Uncommon satoshis, which are valued at a premium, are the first satoshi of each Bitcoin block. He added HIVE has 272 of them.

When Ethereum moved to PoS in 2022, it changed the way that transactions are verified on the network and markedly lowered its energy utilisation. With Bitcoin, miners use huge amounts of energy to verify transactions through proof-of-work (PoW).

Following Ethereum’s shift to PoS, HIVE said it was exploring alternatives to Ethereum mining. Developing a generative art pipeline using new technologies fits into HIVE’s overall corporate strategy of optimising resources, he added.