[HN Gopher] Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
___________________________________________________________________
Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?
Author : h4kor
Score : 110 points
Date : 2022-01-01 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.libove.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.libove.org)
| victorvosk wrote:
| Right, because GPU's are expensive and scarce because of crypto,
| and all other inflation, demand and supply chain issues are a
| completely unrelated topic that just happens to be coinciding...
| /s
| h4kor wrote:
| I tried to correct for overall price development. The
| correlation still persists.
| bdcravens wrote:
| The GPU pricing and availability has been a problem well before
| the current environment. Well before COVID even.
| victorvosk wrote:
| GPU's went up as crypto gained popularity, crypto has gained
| popularity as governments kept printing more money handouts.
| We now have high inflation, high demand, chip shortages,
| supply chain shortages and high crypto popularity because of
| out of control fiat printing.
|
| This also coincides with the governments sudden desire to
| regulate the industry despite it existing for nearly a decade
| now. Its a leak in the their system. You can't print money
| and hand it out where you want if someone has a hedge against
| your money printers.
| bdcravens wrote:
| While I agree with you that out of control fiat printing is
| a problem, I think you're overstating things. You can't
| ignore the role of the pandemic in the supply chain issues,
| and you can't ignore that many turn to crypto only to gain
| more fiat. I say this as someone who has been in crypto
| since 2011, and I've seen what happens during the bear
| markets. Many who aren't "true believers" or whose bags are
| too heavy abandon it, even though the money printers
| haven't changed during those times.
| ameminator wrote:
| So in the last little while, Ethereum mining has become almost
| impossible on GPUs with 4gb of RAM and below. Prices of these sub
| 4gb RAM cards have plummeted to match. So I would say, yes, high
| GPU prices are caused by cryptocurrency mining.
| sodality2 wrote:
| Have they? I've been checking eBay and Craigslist for a decent
| rx 470/80 w/ 4GB ram. They used to be WAY cheaper ($110-140)
| but now I'm finding no-display ones for $180...
| h4kor wrote:
| Didn't know that. Are there still recently released cards sub
| 4GB which I could add to the analysis?
| sabellito wrote:
| throwaway28875 wrote:
| [deleted]
| literallyWTF wrote:
| What else is there to say? Somethings don't require paragraphs
| and paragraphs of shit everyone already knows.
| rvz wrote:
| Assuming everyone commenting here has read the post, if it is _'
| cryptocurrencies'_ _' like'_ Bitcoin and Ethereum that use PoW?
| Then, that is an undeniable, and an undisputed; Yes.
|
| However, if you are talking 'cryptocurrencies' that means you are
| talking about all of them. Not all cryptocurrencies are like
| Bitcoin, and Ethereum and not all of them use PoW. So the title
| should be: 'Is Bitcoin, and Ethereum to blame
| for High GPU Prices?'
|
| or 'Are cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and
| Ethereum to blame for High GPU Prices?'
|
| Rather than generalising for 'ALL' active cryptocurrencies in
| existence, which everyone knows isn't true but continue to attack
| anyway.
| ringworld wrote:
| There exists a (niche?) area of cryptocoins which are rewards
| for producing CPU / GPU intensive work - one example is
| GridCoin but many others are put there once you start
| searching. The result is there are work farms out there
| computing data arguably for good reasons (cancer research etc.)
| but in effect you have the same environmental cost as PoW chain
| computations as they chase the coin rewards.
| gambiting wrote:
| All cryptocurrencies are the same scam anyway, really don't see
| the need to differentiate this way.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Some of them artificially inflate the cost of hard drives
| instead of GPUs, totally not the same!
| yokoprime wrote:
| Are storage prices inflated at the moment? How is a
| physical commodity comparable to a ledger with hashes,
| ultimately assigned a value purely out of demand, despite
| being devoid of any actual purpose or usefulness?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Storage prices jumped sharply a few months back due to
| Chia. They've mostly come back down since then.
|
| I have no idea what the point of your second question is.
| criddell wrote:
| What's artificial about it?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| The cryptocurrency is designed to demand storage for the
| sake of demanding storage (i.e. as proof of waste) rather
| than for any of the natural reasons for which people
| demand storage.
|
| Thus artificial.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| > Assuming everyone commenting here has read the post
|
| Proof of stake is mentioned at the end of the article.
|
| > Other mechanism for securing blockchains exist and
| successfully used (see Proof of Stake). Proof of Work creates
| external costs (environmental impact, higher electricity
| prices, GPU scarcity) to benefit a small group of miners.
| benreesman wrote:
| How beneficial blockchains are is a separate question, but
| proof-of-work is popular because proof-of-stake has serious
| issues.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Indeed, I'm aware but felt it would be overkill to mention
| this when the person clearly didn't even read the whole
| article.
|
| For people interested, look up the "nothing at stake"
| issue.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It's a bit funny that the blogpost found a higher correlation
| between bitcoin and GPU prices than between ethereum and GPU
| prices. You don't mine bitcoin with a GPU. Just because it
| correlates doesn't mean it's a causal effect. Looking at shop
| prices is probably suboptimal compared to looking at auction
| prices, shop prices lag too much. This summer you could almost
| see demand shifting in real time based on the ethereum price.
| There are probably other confounding factors such as summer is
| vacation and warm weather time so demand from both gamers and
| miners is reduced and perhaps there was more supply as well?
|
| Then the validity of the correlations is "verified" by checking
| if there exists a correlation between CPUs and cryptocurrency
| prices? What does this verify, it's just another correlation?
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| The argument is that bitcoin ASIC manufacturing takes
| capacity away that could be devoted to GPUs. I don't know
| enough about chip manufacturing to know if that's true.
|
| Seems plausible, as does the fact that high end gpu crypto
| mining drives up low end gpu card prices as well. No one is
| using a 1030 to mine anything, but those prices are up too.
| neither_color wrote:
| Bitcoin can't be economically mined by GPUs so it's not to
| blame at all in this crypto hype cycle or even the last one of
| 2017. The people on reddit you see with racks full of 3000
| series cards are mining Ethereum.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| This nuance isn't helpful for this discussion I think. 1.4T of
| overall cryptocurrency 2.2T is POW (68%). BTC and ETH alone
| account for 57% of all cryptocurrency market share [1].
|
| Proof of stake is 9% of the overall market. I'm not sure where
| the other 23% go but I don't think any one idea has captured a
| more significant piece. It's like arguing that saying the
| energy sector is responsible for CO2 emissions. Like sure, you
| could make the case that wind and solar are net negative but
| it's not a helpful contribution to the discussion.
|
| [1] https://coincodex.com/cryptocurrencies/sector/proof-of-
| work/
| Zigurd wrote:
| You have a point for the purpose of calculating the scale of
| the impact. But it is also true that a significant part of
| crypto does not drive demand for hardware or electric power.
|
| There are proof of stake coins with multibillion dollar
| valuations that bring a novel combination of smart contracts
| and other "platform" capabilities and low cost. This is
| important because these technologies ensure that crypto can
| survive if the cost and latency of proof of work becomes a
| drag on both usefulness and valuation. Kind of like
| renewables have shown that coal can be phased out. In
| Germany, renewables are now 40% of electricity production,
| projected to become 60% by 2030. Trends matter.
| wpietri wrote:
| I have a hard time taking a gesture toward "multibillion
| dollar valuations" seriously in a realm where market
| manipulation is rampant.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| >proof of stake coins with multibillion dollar valuations
|
| I can mint a billion PoS shitcoins and sell myself one for
| ten dollars and suddenly, I have a valuation of ten
| billion. That doesn't make it less of a shitcoin. Every PoS
| coin is one such shitcoin.
| m_ke wrote:
| I work in deep learning and had to camp out in front of a best
| buy to get my hands on some 3090s. A good portion of the people
| in line with me were crypto miners who were waiting to get more
| GPUs to add to their collection because they're making money on
| each one and as long as it's profitable it makes perfect sense
| for them to buy up more.
| Animats wrote:
| What are they mining, Monero? Is GPU mining still a thing for
| Bitcoin or Ethereum?
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| GPU mining is a thing for Ethereum, hopefully not for much
| longer
| 300bps wrote:
| People have been saying "not much longer" for years. First
| EIP-1559 which frankly didn't reduce my profitability much
| at all. Now ETH 2.0 with PoS.
|
| That's at least six months off and has already been delayed
| repeatedly.
| is_true wrote:
| where I live most people are mining ETH, unfortunately
| electricity is subsidized
| 300bps wrote:
| ETH. I bought a new computer in March of 2021 for $1,900
| including tax. The computer happened to have an RTX 3070 card
| in it.
|
| I have mined and sold $2,800 of ETH in the 9 months I've
| owned it. The extra power has cost me a couple hundred
| dollars.
|
| I've made anywhere from $3 to $75 per day during that time
| (thank you Shiba Inu launch date for the highest numbers).
|
| I'm continuing to make about $3 per day. You can look up
| current profitability for any graphics card at
| whattomine.com.
|
| Bottom line is I could have added infinite graphics cards to
| this setup and the profit would've gone up linearly.
|
| Anyone that doesn't think GPUs are high due to ETH mining has
| no idea what they're talking about. The analysis from OP
| seemed ridiculous to me. I didn't even see LHR mentioned in
| the article which are GPU manufacturers attempting to make
| GPUs unprofitable for miners so they can only be used for
| gaming. (Hint: didn't work very well).
| mgh2 wrote:
| Although AMD may deny it, I suspected this was a reason for
| their current success, not what they claim publicly...but this
| study seems to find no correlation (with ether and bitcoin
| prices)
|
| https://www.windowscentral.com/best-gpus-crypto-mining
| beebeepka wrote:
| Not sure what you are trying to say here but that list is
| weird. Why is 5700xt that great but 5700 not even listed? Not
| much difference between the two
| barkingcat wrote:
| If nvidia straight up just stopped selling any cards, declined
| all their client/customer base, and just put 100% of their
| global output to mining cryptocurrencies, I think it's a good
| chance nvidia can do a 50%+1 attack on both bitcoin and
| ethereum at the same time.
|
| Once they successfully do the attack, they can take over the
| blockchains and allocate all cryptocurrencies to themselves,
| cash out, and it'd probably register as a good profit on their
| income statements.
| knubie wrote:
| I would imagine that compromising the network like that would
| tank the value of those currencies.
| short12 wrote:
| That's an interesting concept
|
| Why doesn't Nvidia use the cards themselves to mine? Not for
| the attack but for the profit?
|
| Each card is obviously cheaper to produce than they are
| selling it for. Why not maximize all the profit?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Just guessing, but there's probably more risk to running a
| mining operation than miners realize, and Nvidia doesn't
| want that risk. There are also PR issues with energy use.
| There's enough money in selling pickaxes.
| XorNot wrote:
| This is exactly it. NVIDIA are also not building more
| factories to meet the demand because they are (correctly)
| assessing that a bigger risk for them is demand collapse
| and a glut of used hardware.
| shiohime wrote:
| You haven't been able to GPU mine bitcoin in like a decade,
| every miner uses dedicated ASICs specifically for mining btc.
| It's been impossible to compete without ASICs for a very long
| time.
| barkingcat wrote:
| Nvidia can design and manufacture asics too you know.
| Likely they have enough expertise to revolutionize the asic
| market as you know it, using the 3nm process at tsmc.
|
| Since Bitmain asics are currently being made at around 16nm
| nodes, using 3nm process that Nvidia has access to - think
| about that for a bit.
| runeks wrote:
| > If nvidia straight up just stopped selling any cards,
| declined all their client/customer base, and just put 100% of
| their global output to mining cryptocurrencies, I think it's
| a good chance nvidia can do a 50%+1 attack on both bitcoin
| and ethereum at the same time.
|
| No, not for Bitcoin. GPUs are no good at mining Bitcoin; you
| need an ASIC for that.
|
| > Once they successfully do the attack, they can take over
| the blockchains and allocate all cryptocurrencies to
| themselves [...]
|
| No. Having a majority of mining power does not enable anyone
| to assign currency to themselves, except for the mining
| reward. That would require faking digital signatures.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > they can take over the blockchains and allocate all
| cryptocurrencies to themselves, cash out
|
| Assuming this was even possible, your plan has a fatal flaw.
|
| Who the heck is going to buy the BTC back?
| capableweb wrote:
| Yeah, they could do that, but what most of these claims ("X
| could easily profit Y by doing 50%+1 attack") miss, is that
| once that attack has been made, who'd trade anything with the
| currency that was attacked? Lets say nvidia does "conquer"
| Bitcoin and have all the bitcoins, who'd in the right mind
| would continue to buy/sell Bitcoins after that? The market
| for Bitcoin would collapse faster than nvidia could excitedly
| scream "PROFITS!" to their shareholders, making the whole
| attack unnecessary in the first place.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I suppose any of the Faang companies could sacrifice a data
| center for a day or two to do the same. Just crash the
| currency and get out, to eliminate proof of work
| currencies.
| capableweb wrote:
| Again, why would they? They only stand to lose on it, so
| why do it in the first place?
| sdenton4 wrote:
| NVIDIA would reduce demand, but for the FAANG companies
| it's a neutral proposition, aside from the cost of doing
| the work to crash the currency.
|
| And there's plenty of reasons to want to do so: Proof-of-
| work currencies are what make ransomware payments
| possible, and there's a large daily CO2 cost for proof of
| work currencies. The question is simply when is the cost
| of the externalities greater than the cost of acting?
| trulyme wrote:
| Am I missing something? Why would NVIDIA want to _reduce_
| demand for their graphic cards?
| ctoth wrote:
| > One of the first ransomware attacks ever documented was
| the AIDS trojan (PC Cyborg Virus) that was released via
| floppy disk in 1989. Victims needed to send $189 to a
| P.O. box in Panama to restore access to their
| systems[0]...
|
| [0]: https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/ransom
| ware/his...
| belltaco wrote:
| Can such an attack be done without detection?
| capableweb wrote:
| No, the whole point of using a blockchain is to have a
| publicly verifiable ledger of all transactions. If
| anything goes wrong, there will be so many alarm bells
| ringing across the world that probably it'll be a
| hearable event for most people living in places that
| resembles modern civilization.
| stouset wrote:
| You can sell your cryptocurrency for real dollars before
| openly performing your 51% attack.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Well, the history of actual 50% attacks on cryptocurrencies
| in the past few years seems to suggest that effect of a 50%
| attack on the value of the cryptocurrency is... pretty
| close to nil, actually. Admittedly, a successful attack on
| a major cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Etherium is likely
| to have far different impact on cryptocurrency society than
| one on a minor cryptocurrency, but the ability of the
| community to twist every bad news into "this is good for
| Bitcoin" should not be underestimated.
| paulgb wrote:
| A 51% attack can only reverse a transaction anyway, it
| can't arbitrarily take money from someone you haven't
| transacted with. But they could get short exposure to
| btc/eth in the market, profit when it went down from the
| ensuing panic, and then sell the graphics cards to retail
| (there are other complications that make this unrealistic,
| of course.)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Who would they cash out too, they would have destroyed the
| market that cost them so much to acquire.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Short the currency?
| elvatoloco123 wrote:
| Even after a decade, users here still don't know the basics
| of how blockchains work. Lol
|
| "A GPU attack on BTC" Jesus help us
| freemint wrote:
| There is no reason enough GPUs can't do it. Yes it is more
| expensive then getting the same hash rate via ASICs but the
| profitability off a 51% attack is a lot higher and NVIDIA
| would get their own chips at a reduced rate.
| emteycz wrote:
| Doing a 51% attack doesn't mean the rest of the network users
| will accept your new blockchain fork.
| djohnston wrote:
| ETH yes but not BTC. GPUs can't touch ASICs
| freemint wrote:
| Enough GPUs can.
| louloulou wrote:
| For bitcoin at least, a top of the line ASIC miner can do
| ~1,000,000x more hashes per second at ~1/100th the power
| per hash compared to a top of the line GPU. The current
| total hash rate for the Bitcoin network is ~200EH/s. So a
| 51% attack would require ~2 trillion GPUs
| consuming/costing 100x as much power as the Bitction
| network does today.
| throwaway858 wrote:
| Would this be legal? Obviously bitcoin has no "terms of use"
| that Nvidia (or anyone) is bound to, but the US has very
| broad "hacking" laws like CFAA.
|
| I imagine that if Nvidia were to openly "steal" someone's
| bitcoin using a 51% attack then the victim could sue Nvidia
| in a US court and things could get interesting.
|
| What laws would apply and what would the outcome of such a
| case be? And could the act also be considered criminal?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Stealing is stealing. 51% attack is just a method to
| rollback a transaction. No different than ordering stuff
| and doing a willfully fraudulent chargeback.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Nah nah. What you (and all the other comments miss), is if
| you were going to do that, you'd just reduce the sale of
| cards tremendously, while hoarding your own production output
| to take over. You wouldn't cut out all sales and hoard all of
| them.
|
| See, if they just stopped selling them, people would ask
| questions. If, however, you just reduced the supply by like
| 80%, said it "was due to all those crypto miners hoarding
| them", and then proceeded to use that hoarded 80% to do a
| 50%+1 attack, you'd be able to -quietly- take over, and turn
| around and sell those coins to the still preserved market.
|
| _applies tinfoil hat_ In fact, who is to say that isn 't
| exactly what they're doing, and hence the existing shortage?
| groone wrote:
| The part where you say "cash out" is hilarious. There is no
| cash in it. You only get to keep the bits. Any cash comes
| from buyers and if there is any attack all the buyers are
| scared away.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Only if they know.
|
| "Clue" and "holding coin" have not so much overlap.
| philipov wrote:
| The part where they stop selling cards will sure go
| completely unnoticed by everyone and not draw any
| scrutiny at all.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Any cash comes from buyers and if there is any attack all
| the buyers are scared away.
|
| Well, assuming any kind of rationality in the crypto market
| is always hazardous: meme coins (doge coin, shiba inu) are
| worth billions in market cap, so does hard forks of
| bitcoin, and Ethereum didn't not collapse after they
| decided to rollback a bunch of things they didn't like
| during the DAO "hack" while they are advertising Ethereum
| as immutable and tampering resistant.
|
| You can never be sure how this market will react in any
| event (well, except Elon tweets I guess)
| dehrmann wrote:
| I assume hedge funds are keeping an eye on interesting
| attacks like this. Short BTC futures, collapse the currency,
| cover.
|
| Nvidia wouldn't do this because it might hurt GPU sales.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I was told that the Nvidia Tesla cards are easier to buy.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Not at best buy they're not.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Yes it's hardware for professionals in GPU computing. But
| you can buy them in other places.
| 1-6 wrote:
| It still doesn't help that the Ethereum hashrate limiter is
| not imposed on the highest-end card (it's FHR not LHR). The
| 3090 (aka 30-series Titan cards) are still really hard to
| find. The the 24GB of double-sided GDDR6x gets super hot
| though and all implementations of the card did not take that
| into account.
|
| The 3080ti's are easier to find as they're LHR and price per
| hashrate ratio isn't good. What I mean by easier is that bots
| have a tendency of going after cards with price/ratio.
|
| It doesn't help either that DDR5 RAM is also highly scalped.
| PC memory is in direct competition to GPU memory and vice
| versa.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Please don't buy GPU's to mine cryptocurrency, you're
| contributing to a global chip shortage and I really want to
| play Halo Infinite in 4k.
|
| For real though, cut that out.
| legulere wrote:
| You're also contributing to global warming with mining
| and contribute to a scheme that allows criminals to
| transfer money. If your local hospital has to shut down
| because of ransomware you are making that possible.
| gorkemyurt wrote:
| AI, VR and crypto all require GPUs and coming of age at the same
| time..
| classique wrote:
| Combo of crypto mining and the whole supply chain situation being
| in a bad situation
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Might have also been ML
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Better an AI researcher or scientist get one of these cards
| than some scumbag miner.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I'd rather a scumbag miner got it than a PoS "scientist"
| working on facial recognition technology for advertising or
| governmental use.
| swalsh wrote:
| I too would rather see cards going to people working on
| protein folding AI and similar.... but I must admit your
| use cases are likely the more dominant ones.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why do you think an AI researcher can't be a scumbag as well?
| Clearview AI anyone?
| benreesman wrote:
| I'm annoyed as the next guy that my deep-learning rigs are
| costing 5 figures, but "scumbag" might be a little strong for
| people who arbitrage NVIDIA's repeated failures to
| effectively segment their GPU offering?
| wpietri wrote:
| It is deeply weird to me that of all the people involved
| you place the failure on Nvidia here. Regardless, I'm ok
| with the term "scumbag" for anybody who tries to profit
| from a negative-sum system.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| But they are. I ranted about this here a few weeks ago, but
| we're still getting intermittent rolling blackouts because
| of energy shortages caused by miners moving into the
| country (we have cheap electricity... for now at least).
| speedgoose wrote:
| No I think it's fair, unless they heat up their bedroom
| while mining.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Definitely! Demand for ml stuff is rising two digits per year
| at least.
| gtsop wrote:
| Alternate answer: No, the manifacturing cost of the gpu stays
| relatively the same, greedy sellers increase price because of the
| increased demand. It's not like they wouldn't make profit on
| regular prices.
| factorialboy wrote:
| Supply steady. Demand exponential increase due to
| cryptocurrencies.
|
| Blame whomever you wish.
| gtsop wrote:
| I just don't get why people hide behind their finger. This is
| capitalism 101. You either like it and go by it or dislike it
| and try to change it. For some reason X the demand for
| product Y has increased which leads to price bump. If you are
| pro capitalist economy then you just accept it for what it
| is. If you don't like it then discuss alternate economies.
| The rules of the economy are the ones to blame, not the
| people who play by the rules.
| lottin wrote:
| It probably has something to do with the fact that crypto
| is perceived as having no social value, and therefore
| people are less inclined to accept negative consequences
| that may result from such an activity.
| gtsop wrote:
| Yes this is probably it. But if we walk down that route,
| what prevents anyone from having a say into what
| everybody else does with their products. Eg: If think
| there is no social value in crafting wooden cups, do I
| have a say in what you do with your purchased wood?
| lottin wrote:
| Not you, as an individual, but as a society, absolutely.
| There are plenty of laws that regulate or forbid certain
| activities.
| gtsop wrote:
| Surely, but are we going to discuss making mining illegal
| because it drives up gpu prices?
| lottin wrote:
| It's already been banned in various countries, including
| a number of US towns.
| gtsop wrote:
| Really? I was totally not aware of that, do you have a
| resource?
| lottin wrote:
| Check this out:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/16/17128678/plattsburgh-
| new-...
|
| https://www.govtech.com/policy/washington-utility-will-
| uphol...
| gtsop wrote:
| Interesting. This seems to be concerned with grid
| electricity consumption which is kinda reasonable
| woah wrote:
| The government should guarantee a GPU for every gamer. Gamers
| rise up!
| yokoprime wrote:
| Yes, the big 2022 gamer strike would be interesting
| cesarb wrote:
| > greedy sellers increase price because of the increased demand
|
| The way supply and demand works can be more subtle than that.
| Imagine two sellers selling the same widget, one has 50 units
| and is selling at $100, the other has 60 units and is selling
| at $120. As long as the demand is below 50 units, buyers will
| prefer the first seller, and the price will be $100. Once the
| demand gets above 50 units, the first seller has no more units,
| and the price is now $120 since buyers have no choice other
| than buy from the second seller. Notice that at no moment did
| any of the sellers increase their price. And the reason for the
| second seller starting with a higher price is most probably not
| greed, but higher costs (for instance, their store being in a
| place with a higher rent).
| gtsop wrote:
| I get your point but I am not sure the price gaps we're
| dealing with right here fall into these cases.
| larsiusprime wrote:
| Cost is not price. The article is about price.
| gtsop wrote:
| Cost is a major factor of price (so is profit margin). By
| stating that cost is relatively the same I highlight the
| stable factor in the price, at the same time highlighting the
| changed factor in the price (profit)
| xondono wrote:
| So your theory is that sellers weren't greedy before?
| gtsop wrote:
| No, my theory is that this the true core of the disscussion
| here should be how the economy works in general, rather than
| a specific case of supply and demand.
| xondono wrote:
| Why? We are talking about a specific case.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I love generality, but it's clear that
| the trees don't let you see the forest here.
|
| Sellers were as greedy before the price rise, so greed is
| not the cause.
|
| The difference here is that: 1) Supply difficulties mean
| there's less in offer. 2) crypto miners have strong demand,
| since they can make money on those gpus.
|
| I would argue that the market is working fairly well, since
| gpus are being allocated for their best use. Gaming is
| great, but people seem to really love their eth.
| jfengel wrote:
| It seems odd to single out greedy sellers when the key demand
| here is people hoping to print money. It's all greed here.
| gtsop wrote:
| For the matter of price, i don't care what other buyers do
| with their purchased goods. I care how the seller treats the
| customer.
|
| If we were to discuss other aspects of mining then yes, i
| would point to other greedy participants in this chain
| sokoloff wrote:
| If a seller has limited capacity to produce, is it better
| for a motivated buyer to be able to buy one, albeit at a
| price higher than they'd like? Or is it better if the price
| is what all buyers would like, but many motivated buyers
| can't get one at all?
|
| Neither is perfectly "right"; it's a direct trade off
| between "they're available if you want one" and "they're as
| inexpensive as you've come to expect from history".
| gtsop wrote:
| My personal answer on this question is the later. Price
| stays the same. Eventually the produced products will get
| into some people's hands. The only difference is how much
| of their money will end up in the seller's pocket. The
| motivation you have doesn't scale linearly with the
| amount of money you can spend. Eg you may have very poor
| people who would make great use of product X and are very
| motivated, but they can't grt their hands on it because
| it is too expensive for them. See the health/surgery
| industry as a great example.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There's an additional wrinkle in that this choice tends
| to lead to intermediate sellers who take the latter
| choice and turn it into the former choice with additional
| friction and fraud risk (and no additional profit to the
| producer, which might give them incentive to scale up
| production to meet the overage of demand.)
|
| High end GPUs are readily available on EBay and other
| secondhand markets and I've resorted to buying them there
| to get them in for ML training machines. (Same with
| consoles, concert and sporting event tickets, and other
| limited production, desirable items.)
| quesera wrote:
| But it wouldn't play out that way.
|
| If demand exceeds supply, but the manufacturer continues
| to sell at normal prices, a scalper market opens up.
|
| Scalpers capture the difference between manufacturer sale
| price and market value. That's their business, so they
| have more time to dedicate to the search for product than
| the "poor people" who "should" have access to the
| product.
|
| Surgery is _not_ a good example because there is no
| reseller market there. Medication would be closer but of
| course med sales are highly regulated. I agree with the
| point you 're getting at though -- access to essential
| health care should not be financially bifurcated.
| darthrupert wrote:
| Does increased demand raise prices?
| swalsh wrote:
| For some reason, only secondary markets follow the law of
| supply and demand. On the primary market, price is fixed so you
| just get shortages.
| gruez wrote:
| But that's not the question. It asks whether they're to blame
| for _high_ GPU prices, which presumes a certain threshold
| before the criteria is met. If there were a few hundred GPUs
| bought by miners, and that demand caused GPU prices to climb
| $10 over MSRP, I doubt that would qualify as them being
| responsible for "high" prices, even though they did raise it.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| ETH Hashrate has tripled in the past year alone, adding 600 TH/s.
| A 3080 does about 100 MH/s. That's about 6 million 3080s.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| In addition, it looks like 9.25 million 1000 series cards
| (1060, 1080, etc.) sold in the first quarter in which they were
| released, which we can extrapolate out to about 30-40 million
| in the first year.
|
| It would be interesting to see what percentage of manufacturing
| capacity NVIDIA is at, as 25%-50% would put ETH GPU mining at
| the majority of sales. Especially considering that supposedly
| higher volume cards such as the 3060 do a quarter of the
| hashrate of a 3080, which would be about 24 million cards. Of
| course, AMD is also part of the conversation as well, but I
| believe that they are quite a bit less volume than NVIDIA. Then
| of course, not all GPU miners are mining ETH necessarily and so
| on.
| atarian wrote:
| One of the craziest videos I saw last year was a mob of people
| rushing a Micro Center to get their hands on a 3080 TI:
| https://youtu.be/UNcx9JdC9VM?t=239
| mirekrusin wrote:
| We've seen same thing happening with toilet paper.
| bdcravens wrote:
| And yet only one is a requirement for life (sans bidet)
| neogodless wrote:
| And those are all LHR cards. So in that specific case they were
| probably mostly gamers tired of waiting for an upgrade.
| jrockway wrote:
| Wasn't the LHR DRM instantly broken?
| Yizahi wrote:
| Short answer - yes. I don't have ANY data to prove this point,
| but strictly empirically - 1) it only takes a small number of
| GPUs bought due to increased demand to significantly alter price,
| all because the shop inventories are small. 2) Eth is not the
| only GPU mined coin and miners can easily and quickly switch to
| RVN or whatever else when Eth is diving. 3) outside factor -
| Bitmine is placing big orders at TSMC which also impacts capacity
| to produce GPUs.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| Short answer - yes. I don't have any data to prove this point,
| but strictly empirically - 1) there's a shortage of chips in
| the world and the crypto market isn't even a dent on the total
| demand
| folli wrote:
| TLDR: Yes.
| capableweb wrote:
| More nuanced TLDR from the actual article:
|
| > We can see a correlation between GPU prices and the value of
| crypto currencies, but correlation does not mean causation. A
| causation is plausible in this case.
| gonab wrote:
| .
| h4kor wrote:
| This would show up in the CPUs. But their prices are
| stable.
| titzer wrote:
| Read the article. The author corrected for the overall
| market trends using linear regression.
| plebianRube wrote:
| Indeed. A quick search shows chip supply side issues are a
| big factor. Increased demand, reduced supply.
|
| https://www.pcgamer.com/why-you-still-cant-buy-a-graphics-
| ca...
| baskethead wrote:
| Yup. The answer is simply yes.
|
| Don't look for a zebra when all you have is a horse.
| dagaci wrote:
| PC Hardware can come from an Era with so many manufacturers and
| true-actual fierce competition, resulting in complete
| commoditisation of components. However, now in 2022, there are
| only 2 CPU vendors,2 GPU vendors and even with storage the number
| of manufacturers is small. Only TSMC can deliver 5nm and Mr Cook
| has all that capacity on lock (AMD and Intel will get a look only
| when he is done with it)
|
| Mining like with politics is just some easy target to blame, the
| problem is Monopolies and duopolies.
|
| Events have catalysed a market rife with monopolies and
| duopolies: these rule the supply chain, they have seen the true
| prices the market will accept, how can we expect prices to go
| back to "normal"?
| jcranmer wrote:
| I walked into a computer store last night. There were shelves
| full of CPUs and SSDs and HDDs, and buying several of them at
| once would have no one batting an eye. Yet there was a policy:
| only 1 graphics card per customer per month, and that applies
| solely to graphics cards (and prebuilt computers containing
| graphics cards).
|
| In other words, there is _visibly_ a shortage of graphics cards
| that is _not_ affecting any other components. That strongly
| suggests that there is something driving demand for graphics
| cards that is not driving demand for other key components of
| computers, which are available in sufficient supply. And the
| list of things that extra demand could be coming from is rather
| short indeed.
| dagaci wrote:
| I waited 6 months for delivery of my CPU, then immediately
| had to wait for the RAM.. HEDT woes..
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, I couldn't find ECC memory when I was building my
| Threadripper workstation mid 2020. I ended up with
| consumer-grade memory which was ridiculously cheap,
| however. (I think I got 128GB for less than $400.)
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| Was is MicroCenter? I've seen the same thing at the store
| near my house.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Yes.
| delabay wrote:
| Alternate opinion: proof of work mining provides a valuable
| service to society much moreso than videogames and the premium on
| GPUs reflects this.
|
| This isn't mainstream opinion of course, however I predict it
| will be. Crypto mining is the true first electricity buyer of
| last resort. It's a productive activity which can use megawatts
| of power and be turned off at a moments notice in order for the
| grid to meet the demands of society (as what is happening in
| Texas right this very moment). What other MW scale industrial
| process can turn off at the flip of a switch? It's a defacto
| subsidy on green power projects.
|
| The HN crowd hates to see it, but crypto mining is becoming
| integrated at the deepest levels with our electricity grid. It
| won't happen everywhere as some jurisdictions may ban this
| "unholy union" but the moment public opinion changes, this
| integration of grid and crypto is a slam dunk no brainer.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Not even worth arguing with this propaganda hype man...
| xondono wrote:
| > It's a productive activity [..]
|
| It's a profitable activity. There's a difference there.
| lostmsu wrote:
| One does not preclude the other.
| jes wrote:
| What if crypto currencies are to blame for low GPU prices?
|
| In other words, what if the opportunity to make money via crypto
| currencies has accelerated the development of GPU capabilities
| and availability beyond what would have happened if crypto
| currencies never came into existence?
| junon wrote:
| Interesting theory that doesn't hold up to much critical
| thought.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Indeed.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Do you have any evidence to support this hypothesis? As I see
| it, cryptomining is not what consumer GPU's are designed for,
| it's just something they happen to be good at
| ericd wrote:
| Not sure why they mention Bitcoin throughout, afaik no one is
| using GPUs for Bitcoin anymore, ASIC miners like Bitmain's S19
| thoroughly dominate.
| h4kor wrote:
| Bitcoin is the biggest crypto currency and uses proof of work.
| As mentioned in the conclusion, ASICs use the same resources as
| GPUs. This can have an effect on GPU prices. Additionally
| bitcoin is still the "gold standard" and most crypto currencies
| follow the price development of bitcoin.
| ericd wrote:
| Do you think Bitmain is winning bids for fab capacity against
| Nvidia/AMD? I guess their newest miner is slated to be on
| 5nm...
| h4kor wrote:
| They can probably pay higher prices when mining rewards are
| high.
| ericd wrote:
| Maybe. Just hard to imagine a company with employees
| numbered in the low hundreds competing for fab capacity
| with nVidia.
| cryptica wrote:
| And what's to blame for Bitcoin's high price? A broken fiat
| monetary system.
|
| I can't believe some people still think that Bitcoin is more
| speculative than major tech stocks. Facebook, Twitter, Google,
| Uber, Snapchat... All propped up by money printing. I think if we
| ran a simulation using hard (non-fiat) money, the net losses of
| these big tech companies would be even more significant than
| Bitcoin's losses on electricity. They're only profitable because
| of the fiat monetary scheme. If you remove the scheme, I think
| it's likely that revenue would dry up and profits would quickly
| go negative. These companies are just not viable in a hard money
| system. More profitable competitors would quickly spring up and
| there would be constant churn.
|
| The reason why Bitcoin is so successful and anti-fragile is that
| it's located everywhere. It always has access to the easiest
| money from all around the world. It has placed itself at the root
| of every scheme around the world.
| anotheraccount9 wrote:
| Your answer does not conform to the common model. Let's make it
| harder to read instead of having a frank discussion.
| wpietri wrote:
| My problem with it is not the content, it's the totalizing,
| evangelical approach. In tone it's about a half-step from the
| goggle-eyed people who want to talk about "international
| bankers" and how they control everything. I have never had a
| good conversation with anybody who starts out like that,
| because they are in the grip of a strongly self-reinforcing
| worldview.
| surfmike wrote:
| It wouldn't matter if Google or Facebook's profit was
| denominated in ETC, BTC, or fiat; those companies are massively
| profitable.
| after_care wrote:
| What?
|
| One of the hallmarks of a tech company is that the costs
| associated with producing the product is relatively flat and
| the revenue from the product goes up linearly with usage. Most
| tech companies then spend their money on recruiting more
| engineers, to try to build more products that are cheap to
| maintain and generate smooth rising revenues. The increased fed
| spending changes the stock price, but it's not changing the
| fundamentals of why selling network access software is so good.
| shash wrote:
| Actually what's to blame for Bitcoin's high price is the finite
| supply of Bitcoin, and the fact that there's wild speculation
| on its price (which incidentally is what makes it really
| horrible as a currency, but that's another topic).
|
| And you're mixing up profitability with stock price
| speculation, which are two very different things - witness the
| Gamestop incident. Once the stock is sold to the public, its
| price fluctuations don't actually affect the bottom line of the
| company unless there's a buyback.
| MattRix wrote:
| This post is frankly delusional. You say a bunch of things but
| have zero explanation for WHY those things might be true. It's
| clear at this point that Bitcoin has become an utter failure
| for almost all the things it was supposed to do, aside from
| making certain people rich due to speculation.
| elvatoloco123 wrote:
| Yeah, any bank or government can confiscate your BTC as well
| as preventing transactions and requiring papers to open
| accounts.
|
| Oh wait
| xondono wrote:
| And what's to blame for the tulips high price? A broken fiat
| monetary system.
|
| The reason why tulips are so successful and anti-fragile is
| that they can be grown everywhere.
|
| By the way, if an activity like mining is only profitable
| because of money printing (depressing interest rates), given
| the world has been in zero to negative interest rates, this
| means the activity is not productive.
| rvnx wrote:
| Yes.
| criddell wrote:
| If you look at it more abstractly and ask if high demand and
| limited supply are driving up prices, it sounds like a dumb
| question.
| AmericanBlarney wrote:
| Author is looking for the wrong correlation - the price is only
| indirectly linked to the amount of silicon being diverted to
| crypto. Should be correlating to hash capacity.
| squarefoot wrote:
| One word: yes.
|
| https://www.hardwaretimes.com/gpu-mining-farm-w-over-4000-ge...
|
| https://hothardware.com/news/a-look-inside-a-massive-rtx-307...
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gpu-shortages-worsen-crypt...
|
| And energy prices, of course. More demand = higher prices.
|
| Also keep in mind that cryptocurrencies become harder to mine
| with time, therefore the pursuit of more powerful hardware and
| more energy isn't going to stop, therefore there's absolutely no
| way prices of hardware and energy will return to normal until
| governments won't stop this nonsense.
|
| Pushing for nuclear or carbon is just hiding the problem under
| the carpet: we don't need more energy because we already have
| plenty, but we must stop wasting it, especially in a way that is
| clearly bringing us to a path in which we will need more and more
| every year.
| afrcnc wrote:
| yes
| scottiebarnes wrote:
| Cloud / data center GPU consumption has also gone up in the past
| couple years.
| joelbondurant wrote:
| rvz wrote:
| If you mention anything about the cloud, deep learning training
| on GPUs and the impact on the environment that has and the
| increasing costs of training and fine tuning your neural net,
| they won't care at all, they will still do it after all these
| years.
|
| As you know it is still a valid point.
| fdsklfdsklfj wrote:
| Mining Dogecoins and solving protein folding add the same
| value to society after all.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Could we use protien folding calculations for proof of
| work?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| No, because those risk being easy in certain cases, and
| thus making the whole thing insecure.
| oriolid wrote:
| This is an interesting conclusion and I'd like to hear some
| reasoning behind it.
| martin8412 wrote:
| It's sarcasm
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Dogecoin mining hasn't been done on GPUs for many many
| years now.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| > If you mention anything about the cloud, deep learning
| training on GPUs and the impact on the environment that has
| and the increasing costs of training and fine tuning your
| neural net, they won't care at all, they will still do it
| after all these years.
|
| There is a recent trend to discuss environmental impacts of
| training deep learning models in papers. See e.g. Latent
| Diffusion Models (Heidelberg), RETRO (Deepmind).
|
| Further, I would posit that machine learning has a much
| clearer value proposition than cryptocurrencies which are a
| highly speculative.
|
| Finally, your argument is an example of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism. Rather than
| arguing against facts presented you are changing the subject
| to say "look here though! this happens here and you're all
| hypocrites for not noticing it!" This makes your argument
| seem defensive, biased and unconvincing.
| rvz wrote:
| Except that I already agreed with the article before you
| commented [0], so it isn't Whataboutism. (You clearly knew
| due to your own reply to my comment). [1] Somehow, you
| thought I brought up the subject, or didn't I just simply
| agree with the parent comment too?
|
| Seems like you rushed to comment towards the wrong person.
|
| > ...than cryptocurrencies which are a highly speculative.
|
| How can a regulated stablecoin like USDP or USDC, or even
| CBDCs sitting on a cryptocurrency technology like XRPL or
| the Stellar Network etc. be 'highly speculative'?
|
| I hope you haven't shown your 'bias' and targeted me,
| instead of the parent comment.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29759242
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29759347
| ShamelessC wrote:
| > Except that I already agreed with the article before
| you commented [0], so it isn't Whataboutism.
|
| Apologies but I really had a tough time parsing the last
| sentence in your initial comment for some reason. I see
| now that you agreed with the article. I'll concede that
| you were not technically using that strategy in its
| purest form. You were, however, deflecting to another
| issue.
|
| > How can a regulated stablecoin like USDP or USDC, or
| even CBDCs sitting on a cryptocurrency technology like
| XRPL or the Stellar Network etc. be 'highly speculative'?
|
| I said "cryptocurrencies" to refer to cryptocurrency
| broadly (so not just stablecoins). I had hoped that was
| obvious, apologies.
|
| Machine learning has offered tangible benefits for
| natural language processing (GPT), semantic search
| (CLIP/faiss indices), digital art (GLIDE/DALL-E) and
| protein folding (AlphaFold).
|
| Cryptocurrencies certainly promise to solve a lot of very
| severe issues in the world such as banking for the
| unbanked but it's less obvious when it accomplishes these
| goals. Could you list some tangible benefits that have
| been accomplished already in the crypto scene?
| rvz wrote:
| > Could you list some tangible benefits that have been
| accomplished already in the crypto scene?
|
| The partnership between Moneygram and Stellar. [0] Using
| the USDC stablecoin on the stellar network for near-
| instant settlements and transfers.
|
| Stellar pilot into CBDCs in Ukraine, [1] and Ripple used
| for CBDCs for Bhutan. [2]
|
| [0] https://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-
| details/...
|
| [1] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/12/14/ukraine-
| commercia...
|
| [2] https://ripple.com/insights/bhutan-advances-
| financial-inclus...
| [deleted]
| dehrmann wrote:
| The answer to the original question is "yes," but growth of ML
| and covid supply chain issues are also to blame.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I sincerely wonder what is coming out datacenter mining these
| days.. what do companies do more that requires so much power ?
| daraosn wrote:
| iqanq wrote:
| It's been years since the crypto boom - why hasn't production
| ramped up accordingly? Or are manufacturers waiting forever until
| it blows over? Because that may never happen.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| I've read that takes 2 years to get a new semi-conductor fab up
| and running. While demand for GPUs has skyrocketed not only in
| crypto but in other areas.
|
| Couple that with us going into 2 years of global lockdowns and
| subsequent supply disruptions have probably exacerbated the
| situation greatly.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| It takes two years under normal circumstances; from what I
| understand backlogs for the lithography equipment are a huge
| bottleneck in the industry since there are only a few
| companies that make such specialized machines. They were
| already backordered for years pre-pandemic, with most of
| those getting pushed out because of supply constraint issues.
|
| We're never going to return to the level of industrial output
| pre-Covid. There are a dozen high-likelihood scenarios down
| the pipe in the 2020s (Russia, China/Taiwan, climate drought
| / famine, etc) that will continue holding global productivity
| down. We're looking at global stagflation for most of the
| rest of our lives as a result, meaning crypto is a good
| hedge. NVidia just needs to start pricing its top-tier GPUs
| for crypto farms, then refurbishing the last generation for
| consumers when the crypto farms upgrade.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If Ethereum moves to PoS, half the crypto GPU market goes
| poof in an instant. Not a good thing to hedge more chip
| fabs on, I would bet.
| freemint wrote:
| It will move from one to another coin and profitability
| will decrease slightly unless supply induces demand.
| mastax wrote:
| Last crypto boom crashed leaving manufacturers high and dry.
| Nvidia had a 9-figure write-off IIRC.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Is there any good article on that topic?
| michaelt wrote:
| Maybe you've heard of global supply chain shortages, covering
| all manner of chips and other components? And a pandemic
| producing sudden changes in demand, as
|
| Meanwhile, mining hardware demand depends on cryptocurrency
| prices, which go up and down like a yoyo. Only a food would
| invest billions in a new chip plant when demand might have
| collapsed by the time it's finished.
| [deleted]
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| Cryptocurrency was and is volatile enough that the correct play
| is to not build out long-term capacity for what very well could
| be a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| rainsford wrote:
| Production of something that complex isn't trivial or quick to
| ramp up, nor is there an unlimited production ceiling. And
| that's a problem, because there is effectively an unlimited
| demand for cryptocurrency mining equipment compared to other
| GPU markets.
|
| I might buy the latest GPU to play PC games at max detail. But
| there's no increase in value in me buying 20 GPUs so there's
| effectively a cap on how many GPUs the gaming market will
| demand. Same goes for other use-cases like scientific
| computing. In those cases ore GPUs do allow them to solve
| harder problems or finish calculations faster, but buying more
| GPUs is more expensive so eventually scientists hit the limits
| on their budgets.
|
| Cryptocurrency mining is different though since it provides a
| direct path to turning more computing power into more income.
| As long as the marginal costs to mine on a GPU are below the
| expected return and the payback time for the fixed cost of
| buying the GPU in the first place isn't too long, it nearly
| always makes sense to buy more GPUs. To put it another way, if
| it makes economic sense for me to mine on 1 GPU, it makes sense
| for me to mine with 10, or 100, or 1000. In fact it probably
| makes more sense to mine with more GPUs since there are
| economies of scale involved. And since miners are more
| concerned with their marginal costs than the fixed costs, even
| huge increases in GPU prices don't alter their behavior much.
| As long as you're making money running a card, who cares if the
| payoff time for it increases a few months?
| zepto wrote:
| You are basically advising them to be crypto bulls.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Exponential growth outgrows any supply, so that's a possibility
| anm89 wrote:
| Are you trying to tell me that the price for a thing is affected
| by its supply and demand? The horror!
| neogodless wrote:
| Your comment comes from a place of assuming the answer to the
| question, which is kind of twofold.
|
| Does the profit from proof-of-work mining increase the
| acceptable GPU price for miners AND is there enough demand from
| these miners for GPUs due to the profit equation to
| significantly inflate those prices?
|
| If you assume yes, you get yes as the answer without proving
| anything.
| krono wrote:
| Rather to which extent crypto in particular has affected the
| market.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| xwdv wrote:
| Some crypto miners are accumulating so much wealth that they are
| looking into building their own chips and hardware to mine even
| harder than what you can buy commercially from Nvidia.
| latchkey wrote:
| Not for ETH. ethash is memory controller bound, not chip bound.
| This is why older generation GPUs are higher ROI than buying
| latest and greatest.
| svara wrote:
| A game theoretically designed paperclip maximizer is growing so
| large that we're starting to see collateral damage in the broad
| economy; car prices and availability issues, just to name one
| example.
| Wiseacre wrote:
| The mineral industry has been experiencing this for centuries.
| Reichhardt wrote:
| Its dead easy to fix it though: for politicians to ban the
| purchase of Proof of Work cryptocurrencies. All of the major
| exchanges are centralized now anyway. Tank the price (via basic
| supply-demand microeconomics) and you solve electricity and
| chip supply issues.
|
| The fact that this easy step hasn't been done suggests a
| broader conspiracy to destabilize Western nations and sow
| chaos, perhaps to usher in a transfer of global power from West
| to East. Note that China has banned the mining and trade of
| these cryptocurrencies long ago.
| rasz wrote:
| Forget car prices, look at overall energy prices this winter.
| dave333 wrote:
| The cost of power is about to drop significantly. A leased
| 250 KW Suncell generator could mine a lot of crypto.
| https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011186387437
| swalsh wrote:
| I guess we'll find out. It's increasingly likely the merge will
| happen his year. When ETH moves to PoS, mines will likely move to
| other currencies, or sell their hardware, that said the return
| for alternative crypto's still on PoW is unlikely to match that
| of ETH. I would be very surprised if demand from miners is not
| reduced.
| h4kor wrote:
| Let's hope this happens. They have been promising this for a
| long time. It's the "fusion energy will be available soon" of
| the crypto currency space.
| poisonborz wrote:
| > Bitcoin miners rarely use GPUs anymore, but ASICs
|
| Seeing the title and the conclusions, how can this be the case?
| Computationally they're not much behind ASICs per $, are much
| more broadly available to buy and are easier to sell when needed.
| msgilligan wrote:
| GPUs are used to mine cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.
| 1-6 wrote:
| And GPUs are better positioned to pivot at any point and mine
| something else or go on resale when profitability equations
| change.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| For Bitcoin mining's computational needs, the specific ASICS
| designed for Bitcoin mining are several orders of magnitude
| ahead of GPUs in efficiency.
| runeks wrote:
| > Computationally they're not much behind ASICs per $ [...]
|
| Is this really true for Bitcoin? I've been out of the mining
| game for a long time, but ~5 years ago this certainly wasn't
| true. Back then GPUs were at least an order of magnitude less
| efficient than ASICs.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| BTC ASICS have much better performance per watt for mining
| Bitcoin. It's almost impossible to be profitable with btc
| mining on GPUs. ETH and many other alts are mined on GPUs
| though.
| donkarma wrote:
| Anyone who buys a GPU second-hand is an idiot. They would have
| been running at maximum silicon temperature 24/7 with the
| result of massive wear.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| It really doesn't work that way. They don't have moving parts
| (except the fan which is easily replaced); the question is
| electron migration and heat related problems. If they're kept
| well-cooled they could have another ten years in them.
| [deleted]
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| I'd be much more afraid of the GPU chip unsoldering itself
| from the mainboard (which is what happens usually if the card
| dies unexpectedly). If it wears out in 20 years instead of
| the expected 50... well, good riddance.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Actually, having uneven load is probably worse for GPUs than
| constant high load due to components contracting/expanding
| every time temperature changes (think rocking something from
| side to side to take it out).
|
| For the same reason you might (needs detailed analysis)
| economically be better off overall by keeping the temperature
| in your house constant as opposed to saving energy with a
| schedule.
| yob89 wrote:
| bvaldivielso wrote:
| The article only attempts to show there's correlation, and ends
| up by saying "correlation doesn't imply causation, but maybe
| there's causation". So basically, we don't know.
|
| I'm not blaming the author, because determining causation is
| hard, and checking there's correlation between two variables can
| still be interesting, but the article falls short of answering
| the question.
| IshKebab wrote:
| They provide decently good evidence of causation, because of
| the lack of correlation with CPUs. Correlation doesn't _prove_
| causation, but it is evidence for it.
| cinntaile wrote:
| How does the lack of correlation with CPUs verify the GPU
| correlation?
| beebmam wrote:
| Correlation can be shown to be causation when all factors
| are both known and controlled for. Controlling for CPU
| prices is one step towards that goal.
| cinntaile wrote:
| This is a circular argument. Why are CPU prices a
| confounding factor?
| brokensegue wrote:
| one can imagine factors that would cause both CPU and GPU
| prices to increase together. for example general purpose
| computing demand or supply-side constraints might cause
| all chip prices to rise.
|
| if those non-crypto factors were confounding (say also
| happened to correlate with crypto-prices maybe due to
| some third unknown factor) then we would see CPU and GPU
| prices rise in response to crypto prices. we do not see
| that.
| wpietri wrote:
| Correlation is correlated with causation, so I think this sort
| of exploration of a question is still valuable.
| bvaldivielso wrote:
| I agree that it's valuable and interesting, just not a
| definitive answer to the question
| blululu wrote:
| They ran a pretty solid analysis of the subject. Not only do
| they look at correlation, but they regress out the trend line
| and show a correlation in the noise. Correlation of noise
| typically does imply a causal connection. They also look at
| correlation between GPUs that are used for mining and ones that
| are not and show that the correlation only holds for GPUs used
| in mining, so the case seems pretty tight. If you are just
| trying to poke holes in the analysis I would focus more on the
| possibility of there being other contributing factors that are
| more significant (i.g. supply chain issues). In any case the
| author was considerate enough to include the dataset and the
| python notebook so you can run subsequent analyses on your own.
| Some quick things worth trying: 1. )Weight both the price of
| Cryptocurrencies and the price of GPUs for Market Size. 2.) Add
| in other explanatory variables to try to find the relative
| contributions of different sources.
| bvaldivielso wrote:
| I'm not trying to poke holes in the analysis, and as I said
| I'm not blaming the author for what they did. I'm just
| repeating what the author said:
|
| > We can see a correlation between GPU prices and the value
| of crypto currencies, but correlation does not mean
| causation. A causation is plausible in this case.
|
| And then they go on to repeat a very reasonable argument,
| which I happen to believe to be true, but the kind of
| argument that everyone was already making before looking at
| any data.
|
| The fact that the correlations do not hold as much for CPUs
| is good, but still not enough to stablish causation. As you
| said, there might be some confounding factors that affect
| crypto and GPUs but not CPUs.
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