A processing system includes a processor to construct an input message comprising a target value and a nonce and a hardware accelerator, communicatively coupled to the processor, implementing a plurality of circuits to perform stage-1 secure hash algorithm (SHA) hash and stage-2 SHA hash, wherein to perform the stage-2 SHA hash, the hardware accelerator is to perform a plurality of rounds of compression on state data stored in a plurality of registers associated with a stage-2 SHA hash circuit using an input value, calculate a plurality of speculative computation bits using a plurality of bits of the state data, and transmit the plurality of speculative computation bits to the processor.