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GPUs vanish as cryptocurrency prices soar again
Remember how it was ridiculously hard to get GPUs from mid-2017 through mid-2018 because the Ethereum miners were buying them all? Well, they're back. The price of Ethereum is now nearing what it was at its 2018 peak. That doesn't just stop you from getting a new GeForce RTX 3000 series or Radeon RX 6000 series GPU, which have limited supply. If you want older GPUs, those are pretty much sold out, too.
The price of Ethereum had dropped below $100 in late 2018. It was under $240 as recently as last July, and $730 earlier this year. It's now over $1200, and the year is still quite young. That's quite a jump from just last week. It seems that every time you hope the mania has peaked, it comes back in force. Someday it won't, and the people who have bought in now will lose everything that they put into the system. At this point, I'm just hoping that that bust doesn't cause a worldwide financial crisis, as the amount of money involved is absolutely enough to do that.
Proof of stake was supposed to save us from this outcome. There would be no more Ethereum mining, as transactions would be verified by a different mechanism, starting around the beginning of 2020. Then that got delayed to near the end of 2020. Now it's delayed again, until near the end of 2021. So the only thing that can restore the GPU supply before then is if people figure out that mined cryptocurrencies aren't actually worth anything.
The total market value of all cryptocurrencies in existence has now passed $1 trillion, an all-time high. Bitcoin alone is over 3/4 of that, and Ethereum is a majority of the rest. Bitcoin mining has long since moved to ASICs. If Ethereum mining goes away, then that alone would probably be enough to end the GPU mining craze, as the other mineable cryptocurrencies aren't nearly as valuable.
To put into perspective how ridiculous this is, the market value of all of the Bitcoins in existence is now about 38% of that of all of the United States Dollars in existence. And you can actually buy a lot of things if you have US Dollars. Bitcoins, not so much. People buying Bitcoins today are betting that that ratio is out of whack because Bitcoins should be worth even more. That is, they're betting that traditional currencies are going to go away in favor of mined cryptocurrencies, and governments that quite like seigniorage won't be able to stop it.
Sometimes people ask why GPU vendors don't just build more GPUs to handle the shortage. But you can't handle near-infinite demand just by increasing the supply. Nvidia's total revenue for 2020 was less than 8% of the current value of Ethereum. Filling that kind of demand would require TSMC and/or Samsung building more fabs, and that takes years--by which time, the craze would probably be over, so the billions that they invest in the additional fabs would be lost.
The price of Ethereum had dropped below $100 in late 2018. It was under $240 as recently as last July, and $730 earlier this year. It's now over $1200, and the year is still quite young. That's quite a jump from just last week. It seems that every time you hope the mania has peaked, it comes back in force. Someday it won't, and the people who have bought in now will lose everything that they put into the system. At this point, I'm just hoping that that bust doesn't cause a worldwide financial crisis, as the amount of money involved is absolutely enough to do that.
Proof of stake was supposed to save us from this outcome. There would be no more Ethereum mining, as transactions would be verified by a different mechanism, starting around the beginning of 2020. Then that got delayed to near the end of 2020. Now it's delayed again, until near the end of 2021. So the only thing that can restore the GPU supply before then is if people figure out that mined cryptocurrencies aren't actually worth anything.
The total market value of all cryptocurrencies in existence has now passed $1 trillion, an all-time high. Bitcoin alone is over 3/4 of that, and Ethereum is a majority of the rest. Bitcoin mining has long since moved to ASICs. If Ethereum mining goes away, then that alone would probably be enough to end the GPU mining craze, as the other mineable cryptocurrencies aren't nearly as valuable.
To put into perspective how ridiculous this is, the market value of all of the Bitcoins in existence is now about 38% of that of all of the United States Dollars in existence. And you can actually buy a lot of things if you have US Dollars. Bitcoins, not so much. People buying Bitcoins today are betting that that ratio is out of whack because Bitcoins should be worth even more. That is, they're betting that traditional currencies are going to go away in favor of mined cryptocurrencies, and governments that quite like seigniorage won't be able to stop it.
Sometimes people ask why GPU vendors don't just build more GPUs to handle the shortage. But you can't handle near-infinite demand just by increasing the supply. Nvidia's total revenue for 2020 was less than 8% of the current value of Ethereum. Filling that kind of demand would require TSMC and/or Samsung building more fabs, and that takes years--by which time, the craze would probably be over, so the billions that they invest in the additional fabs would be lost.
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Comments
If the market stays hot enough for them to get more foundry orders in, then it’s been hot long enough for ASICS to get developed and take over.
I dislike miners. Not as bad as scalpers - but still not my favorite
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Unfortunately, that day is not today. The saying goes that the market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent.
Crypto to me a joke,it's nothing more than a pyramid scheme,well i guess lots of dummies to bait in.
This an oddball era in the history of gaming,now with Covid we will have more addicted gamers and more people spending foolishly on bad or over hyped games and PC peripherals they DON'T need.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I totally agree, but can you please tone down usage of the U-word? We probably don't want the Prime Fanboi to turn this thread into another hallelujah chorus for a game which shall not be named.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
At the height of the last mining craze, AMD was running ads on New Egg basically saying, hey miners, you've bought all the gaming GPUs. Try buying our professional GPUs. They work for mining, too, and only cost twice as much as the gaming GPUs. And with prices as they were, AMD was actually right that buying professional GPUs for mining made sense.
Probably not a great investment for retirement, though. Crazy that ETH doubled in a week, though.
For those who aren't aware, Bitcoin prices have roughly quadrupled since last October.
But, with that put aside, realistically at this point, the only reason why we don't already have a single world currency is the egotism of individual governments, but there really is no reason why we shouldn't.
I am however, betting that will end soon enough when the Won takes over as the Universal Currency of the Realms (AKA: World Reserve Currency) and we will all simply either adopt the Won (Which for a lot of gamers will be very easy, as many of us are already used to looking at game fiscal reports written in the Won, so it is something we are comfortable with) or perhaps some other single style of currency under a different name, so that for the few paranoid holdouts, it does not feel like China is taking over the world.
Who knows.. we might even convert to metric, and not get stuck in the past using a 6 divisible system, and learn how to use the easier system of divisible of 10.
What holds Bitcoin together is faith, not institutions and that faith will one day falter, but its not a bad investment of time or money, just don't rely on it or put too much time in. There are parallels here with the South Sea Bubble, though I think it's unlikely it will actually burst who will be to blame? Because there is always has to be someone to blame, and it won't be those who wanted something for nothing that's for sure. Governments may be expected to step in and tax payers to pay for their speculation, they shouldn't be but once the media gets hold of such a story there may be "increasing pressure".
What's not plausible is that mined cryptocurrencies that exist today will have a future. If cryptocurrencies catch on, they're going to be backed by governments, for the same reason as existing currencies. The initial allocation of the currency will be to trade in your physical cash for the new cryptocurrency.
The world is not going to just adopt Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever, for several reasons. One huge question is, who gets the initially allocated money? That's going to be worth trillions of dollars. It's not just that governments will want to control that for themselves, though they will. People who already have the currencies that are common today will want that money to still be worth something and cooperate with a government transition.
Additionally, most of the world will want the people who bought up Bitcoin, Ethereum, or whatever else not to benefit from doing so. It's not just that gamers hate those people because they can't buy video cards. People who care about the environment hate them for wasting massive amounts of energy. They're easy to vilify on grounds of disrupting the supply of other computer parts, as well as the electric grid.
Although, for the amount of money the guy obviously has wrapped up in GPUs.. yeah, he could afford something better than ripping the stuffing out of his mattress. He's gone a bit beyond dabbling, and is into the realm of needing 3 phase power.
Looks like he has around 70 +/- GPUs there - not sure what, but all triple fan, so at least 150W each, and probably 200+... at 200W, that's around ... 14kW. At 240V, somewhere around 70A. Some serious power to just have cranking in your garage. Doable on an average home electric drop, but at least where I live, you'd need to seriously consider ventilation, would probably get a visit from the local cops to make sure you aren't setting up a growhouse, and likely to get the attention of the utility to make sure your on an "appropriate" electrical rate.
Last generation of Nvidia GPUs have their price growing instead of falling ( as it should because new generation came out ) and new generation is not available anywhere.
So at the moment I am playing on Nvidia 660 GTC, and will probably be forced too for many months to come...
I think people are seeing the reality of a Biden Presidency and preparing for it. Increased corporate tax rate, like for like transactions on crypto when the Trump tax laws end. Crypto was a way to bypass currency exchanges.
Of course I’m still rocking a 1060...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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