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Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

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Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#151
post #139
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not you, as an individual, but as a society, absolutely. There are plenty of laws that regulate or forbid certain activities.

Surely, but are we going to discuss making mining illegal because it drives up gpu prices?

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was told that the Nvidia Tesla cards are easier to buy.

Not at best buy they're not.

Yes it's hardware for professionals in GPU computing. But you can buy them in other places.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#153

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.

Didn't know that. Are there still recently released cards sub 4GB which I could add to the analysis?

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#154

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.

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.

How does the lack of correlation with CPUs verify the GPU correlation?

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#155
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.

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?

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#156
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

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…

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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#157

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

The GPU pricing and availability has been a problem well before the current environment. Well before COVID even.

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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reg…

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…

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.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#160
post #72

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.

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 reg…

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?

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