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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?

#291

Post by ByteJockey »

Retric wrote: post #259
ByteJockey wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but basically every currency has some theoretical problem. Usually it's just about the currency becoming worthless (usually only a problem in government controlled currencies that have loans in foreign currencies), or people just not accepting it anymore. There's no inherent value in any currency, it's just a useful fiction because it's really hard to go get five goats to trade somebody for a laptop.

Currencies are propped up by taxes. The IRS wants a significant percentage of the US GDP paid in USD, as long as the economy exists and the government doesn’t print truly vast amounts of money from thin air the USD can only move within a fairly narrow range.

That would be true if only the US was using the dollar.

Given the number of countries using the dollar as their reserve currency, value could collapse quite a ways without the US doing anything.

It's not likely, but neither is a 50 + 1 attack on bitcoin given the amount of computing power currently tied up there.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#292

Post by freemint »

louloulou wrote: post #223
freemint wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough GPUs can.

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.

I stand corrected Nvidia doesn't have that many GPUs.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#293

Post by Retric »

ByteJockey wrote: post #291
Retric wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currencies are propped up by taxes. The IRS wants a significant percentage of the US GDP paid in USD, as long as the economy exists and the government doesn’t print truly vast amounts of money from thin air the USD can only move within a fairly narrow range.

That would be true if only the US was using the dollar. Given the number of countries using the dollar as their reserve currency, value could collapse quite a ways without the US doing anything. It's not likely, but neither is a 50 + 1 attack on bitcoin given the amount of computing power currently tied up there.

That’s less significant than you might think as US GDP is almost 1/4 of global GDP and foreign countries don’t keep that many USD on hand. Aka even in global terms US GDP is vast.

Also, Bitcoin has significantly more vulnerabilities than just a 51% attack or a crash as nodes need to be connected to the internet and therefore can at least in theory be hacked. What exactly happens after that point is anyones guess, but it could easily be worse than a traditional 51% attack.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#294

Post by neogodless »

jrockway wrote: post #233
neogodless wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those are all LHR cards. So in that specific case they were probably mostly gamers tired of waiting for an upgrade.

Wasn't the LHR DRM instantly broken?

Not exactly. Some degree of the lower hashrate was circumvented, but not at all a complete reversal.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#295

Post by Aeolun »

groone wrote: post #213
barkingcat wrote: post #136

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…

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.

So NVIDEA is doing the smart thing, and just keep raking in cold hard cash from the miners, whom take on all the risk for when the market collapses.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#296

Post by toolz »

rasz wrote: post #279
toolz wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that you could buy a real-world item worth half as much as the amount of ETH/BTC you would mine in an hour or two or 51% is simply unrealistic. ETH mining at 500TH (a solid chunk over 51% just for ease) would net you 300 ETH an hour...that's 1.1 million USD, which means you would have to be able to purchase millions of dollars worth of real world items that would be released to you within the time-frame of y…

Wouldnt 51% attack allow you to rewrite contracts?

no, contracts are immutable, I'm unaware of any base-layer chain attacks that can affect contracts negatively (outside of contract level logic that may be vulnerable itself)

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#297

Post by roenxi »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #289
chii wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPUs are manufacturable. The market is meant to signal to manufacturers that this is profitable to make more of, and thus, more would become available in the future. Unfortunately, the current world events conspired to not allow this balance to happen - chip shortages and logistics problems etc. Give it a few more years, and it will balance back out.

There is not enough competition, people got conditioned to high prices for 10 years - once prices are raised they are not coming back. Good luck starting your GPU company

> Good luck starting your GPU company

There is a chance you may mean that sarcastically, so...

Yes, if you think sale prices are going to stay much higher than manufacturing costs it is a great time to start a new GPU factory. Mass produce 5-10 year old tech in bulk, soak up enough of the market to survive and move as quickly as possible into modern manufacturing techniques.

We've seen in the last number of years that investors/lenders are perfectly happy to take multi-billion dollar losses of multiple years while chasing a market. It'd work fine.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#298

Post by throwaway55421 »

squarefoot wrote: post #234

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 st…

But we do need more energy.

Energy can fix essentially any problem we have. Need to desalinate water? Energy. Need to heat your Arctic home? Energy.

Being able to use energy in crazy and inefficient ways is a feature, not a bug. Everything you ever do outside of subsistence level agriculture is proof of that.

The ideal state of being would be one in which we have limitless fusion power or similar and we basically just do whatever we wish. If we get that and alchemy we win the Universe.

The problem is in not pricing in externalities. If I have a fusion reactor in my garden then I can use as much of it as I want and it has no negative effect on you.

If we tax carbon heavily then Bitcoin and friends will actually get us to that future more quickly.

That politicians are fucking around with stuff like low emission zones and labels on meat or whatever rather than just taxing carbon is almost genocidal at this point. It's hilariously off the mark.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#299

Post by CryptoBanker »

ip26 wrote: post #254
kingo55 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on the ethereum side they are moving to a Proof of Stake system which doesn't require the insane hardware and energy that Proof of Work consensus requires. So there will be some relief on the horizon. Also, I expect over time that fewer cryptos will use Proof of Work. Unless you're Bitcoin/Ethereum, proof of work chains get attacked all the time. Look at Ethereum Classic.

How many years has etherium been putting off proof of stake now? Two? Three?

Ever since I quit my job in finance - that was 4 years ago now.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices?

#300

Post by throwaway6734 »

hashimotonomora wrote: post #244
throwaway6734 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short the currency?

Who’s the counterpart to your short?

I guess you'd have to wait for the market to mature a bit more or short companies that hold large quantities of btc
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