Jack Dorsey says Block is building a bitcoin mining system so that anyone can easily buy a rig

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Block is going ahead with building a bitcoin mining system that will be open to individuals and businesses worldwide, its CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed late Thursday.

As part of the project, the digital payments company will look at how to make it easy for anyone, anywhere to buy a mining rig.

In October, Dorsey said Block was considering developing a mining system based on custom hardware, using an «open source» approach of working and sharing with the community.

«We're officially building an open bitcoin mining system,» <a href=«https://twitter.com/jack/status/1481745463401500676?ref_src=» https: markets.businessinsider.com target="_blank">he said on Twitter Thursday

Dorsey shared a more detailed series of tweets from Thomas Templeton, Block's general manager for hardware, laying out the plans for the project.

The goal is to make mining bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, more distributed and efficient in every way, Templeton said — including buying, set-up and maintenance.

«We're interested because mining goes far beyond creating new bitcoin. We see it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless,» he said.

Dorsey has said that the core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for third parties. He believes the more decentralized this is — that is, the less the need for an intermediary — the more resilient the bitcoin network becomes.

Templeton listed several «customer pain points» and technical challenges in current mining rigs that Block aims to tackle, such as the high cost, power consumption and availability.

«For most people, mining rigs are hard to find. Once you've managed to track them down, they're expensive and