Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#71

Post by anotheraccount9 » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #26

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 electric…

Your answer does not conform to the common model. Let's make it harder to read instead of having a frank discussion.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#72

Post by m_ke » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#73

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #52

iqanq wrote: post #33

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.

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]

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#74

Post by oriolid » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

fdsklfdsklfj wrote: post #59

rvz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mining Dogecoins and solving protein folding add the same value to society after all.

This is an interesting conclusion and I'd like to hear some reasoning behind it.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#75

Post by msgilligan » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #68

> 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.

GPUs are used to mine cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#76

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #68

> 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.

For Bitcoin mining’s computational needs, the specific ASICS designed for Bitcoin mining are several orders of magnitude ahead of GPUs in efficiency.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#77

Post by CrazyStat » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

yokoprime wrote: post #50

CrazyStat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them artificially inflate the cost of hard drives instead of GPUs, totally not the same!

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?

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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#78

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

fdsklfdsklfj wrote: post #59

rvz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mining Dogecoins and solving protein folding add the same value to society after all.

Dogecoin mining hasn’t been done on GPUs for many many years now.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#79

Post by runeks » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #68

> 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.

> 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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#80

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Jan 01, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #40

rvz wrote: post #8

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 Hig…

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 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.