An Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC, is a microchip designed and manufactured for a very specific purpose.

Various different cryptocurrencies operate using different mining algorithms. Bitcoin, for example, uses the SHA-256 algorithm. A Bitcoin ASIC is, therefore, a microchip which has been designed solely for performing SHA-256 calculations as quickly and efficiently as possible. Cryptocurrencies with different mining algorithms would need an ASIC designed specifically for the kind of calculations performed as part of that algorithm.

ASICs designed for Bitcoin mining were first released in 2013.

ASIC is vastly faster than all previous mining technologies.