[News] Nvidia and AMD still doing well out of mining

[StyM]

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphic...-out-of-mining

Sales of PC graphics add-in cards rose in the second quarter for the first time in nearly a decade, benefiting Nvidia and AMD.

Data from Jon Peddie Research (JPR), add-in card sales jumped 30.9 percent in the second quarter from the first quarter, and 34.9 percent from a year earlier.

More than $3.6 billion of add-in hardware was sold last quarter, representing an increase of about $850 million over the first three months of the year.

GPUs from AMD and Nvidia have seen projected sales increases over the past few months because of the rise of the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin and Ethereum miners use the hardware to earn, find and verify transactions at an accelerated rate.

Potential buyers in all market segments have been plagued by graphics card shortages and price increases in recent months because of the demand for coin-mining hardware. Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has provided the sales numbers to put in context.

Sales of add-in cards of AMD and Nvidia hardware were 520,000 units higher in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, according to JPR.

Traditionally, we would expect the standard seasonal drop of 10,000-20,000 units. This indicates that upwards of 500,000 total units of high-end graphics were sold into the channel and, indeed, for mining-specific uses. About one in three graphics cards sold at retail, to OEMs or businesses was used for cryptocurrency mining.

[AliG]

Well, at least someone is benefiting from the lack of volume...

[iddqd]

For now. When mining stops being profitable, all the bitcoiners are going to flood ebay with $100 rx580s and 1070s, making it very difficult to move new SKUs for either company.

[AliG]

For now. When mining stops being profitable, all the bitcoiners are going to flood ebay with $100 rx580s and 1070s, making it very difficult to move new SKUs for either company.

I don't think that will happen for a while though. Miners just move on to the next coin when the incentives start to go down. Case and point: Ethereum is now the primary mining target for Nvidia cards.

[iddqd]

The assumption is that someone will keep creating new crypto currencies forever.

[zalbard]

The assumption is that someone will keep creating new crypto currencies forever.

If there's money to be made from it, why will they stop?

[iddqd]

Mining difficulty isn't constant. It increases with (1) more miners and (2) longer block chains. Assuming the price of the coin stays constant, this alone guarantees that at some point mining will stop being profitable.

Of course, the price of the coin can go up to fight this. But it's foolish to expect it to keep increasing in value forever. Also, it can just as easily decrease instead.

[drmrlordx]

Ethereum has already had a large "Ice Age"-induced spike in difficulty. So mining is much less profitable there than it was just two months ago.

Besides, NV card owners are mining the hell out of ZEC as well.

[Revv23]

With the spikes in block chain prices, I think cards are much more valuable to miners than gamers for the long term.

[drmrlordx]

Not today they aren't! Crypto just took a beating today they won't soon forget.

[vario]

Not today they aren't! Crypto just took a beating today they won't soon forget.

Yea it took a beating but that was after huge increases in value, co pretty much a normal price correction, and it already started to rise again.
For example litecoin, from 2weeks ago almost 2x price increase, then a hard drop, but still higher than before the rise, and rising again
https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/litecoin/usd

And it turns out vegas are great for mining after some tuning, 44MH/s ethereum at 250W of power.So we likely wont see vega`s in normal price range this year...
And there are rumours of special tweaked bioses for mining only that get you 60MH/s.

[bluestang]

Crypto is all about manipulation. Always was and always will be. There is nothing natural about the increases or decreases in values of any Crypto Currency.

[AliG]

Crypto is all about manipulation. Always was and always will be. There is nothing natural about the increases or decreases in values of any Crypto Currency.

Agreed. There is nothing of value backing crypto. It's all about people's gut feelings - and you know how that usually turns out.

The irony is that hoarding bitcoins defeats the entire purpose of using as a means of making simple, private financial transactions. It takes so damn long for places like coinbase to actually make the transfers that you might as well just grab a wheel barrow and drive a pile of cash.

[qcmadness]

Agreed. There is nothing of value backing crypto. It's all about people's gut feelings - and you know how that usually turns out.

The irony is that hoarding bitcoins defeats the entire purpose of using as a means of making simple, private financial transactions. It takes so damn long for places like coinbase to actually make the transfers that you might as well just grab a wheel barrow and drive a pile of cash.

But it is great for black market transfer.

[Revv23]

But it is great for black market transfer.

That means different things in different areas. I imagine if I were in Venezuela or another country in the middle of collapse I would be getting as much Bitcoin or digital currency as I can. Granted it's all Fiat money but at least Bitcoin isn't tied to the success or failure of one govt.

[drmrlordx]

Yea it took a beating but that was after huge increases in value, co pretty much a normal price correction, and it already started to rise again.
For example litecoin, from 2weeks ago almost 2x price increase, then a hard drop, but still higher than before the rise, and rising again
https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/litecoin/usd

We will see how long that lasts. Many coins are still off their highs though. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the crypto space go up some more, but you can never be sure . . . it's always a wild ride.

And it turns out vegas are great for mining after some tuning, 44MH/s ethereum at 250W of power.

The jury's still out on that one. We have different reports from different users. I can tell you that 44 MH/s from 250W is not THAT good. I can do ~24 MH/s with a tuned Hawaii using maybe 150-160W at the PSU, and that's about the same level of efficiency. Polaris does better, as do 1070s. Some folks have claimed 43 MH/s @ 100W but those reports may be bogus or due to misreporting of data. As an ETH miner, I'm not impressed with Vega thus far.

Agreed. There is nothing of value backing crypto. It's all about people's gut feelings - and you know how that usually turns out.

There's nothing backing fiat currency either. Hasn't stopped major governments from using it.

The irony is that hoarding bitcoins defeats the entire purpose of using as a means of making simple, private financial transactions. It takes so damn long for places like coinbase to actually make the transfers that you might as well just grab a wheel barrow and drive a pile of cash.

Coinbase has its own issues related to transfers to/from established financial institutions, trading slowdowns/freezes, and other nonsense. That's not the fault of the blockchains. BTC did have problems with transfer times. You'll notice the increase in price as of late being due to a hard fork intended to address this very issue. The resulting Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash both have taken steps to address the problem, albeit steps that may not be adequate in the long run. Other coins such as Ethereum have fewer problems and/or have planned future solutions to scaling (In the case of ETH, Raiden). Not to speak of Plasma and other nonsense. There's so much going on with crypto nowadays that it's impossible to keep up with all the news, and to separate fact from hype.

But it is great for black market transfer.

DASH or ZEC, sure. Or ETH (or some token traded over the Ethereum blockchain) once they roll out zk-SNARK. Bitcoin is really easy to track.

[iddqd]

There's nothing backing fiat currency either. Hasn't stopped major governments from using it.

That's not necessarily true. Some governments choose to maintain a predictable rate of inflation by either selling, or buying back government bonds to banks (as needed). This is a fairly useful guarantee for doing business. Arguably actually better than simply "backing" a currency with a rare mineral; if new deposits of said mineral are discovered, its value tanks - unpredictably. Surprises are bad for business.

[AliG]

That's not necessarily true. Some governments choose to maintain a predictable rate of inflation by either selling, or buying back government bonds to banks (as needed). This is a fairly useful guarantee for doing business. Arguably actually better than simply "backing" a currency with a rare mineral; if new deposits of said mineral are discovered, its value tanks - unpredictably. Surprises are bad for business.

Correct. Germany proved this after decoupling their currency from gold post WW1 to be able to offer better export pricing. There is literally nothing backing bitcoin. It's value fluctuates based off how people feel. It literally has increased by hundreds of percent in the span of a few months, only to collapse back down to $10. It's worthless.

The only useful thing is the blockchain offers a means of privately exchanging currency. And my point still stands there - the lack of liquidity really hurts in that regard. Only a matter of time before the blackmarket switches to something more liquid.

[HotGore]

That is why the only good coin is the Burger King Whoppercoin, it is a burger backed currency!

[AliG]

that is why the only good coin is the burger king whoppercoin, it is a flame broiled currency!

...

[vario]

The jury's still out on that one. We have different reports from different users. I can tell you that 44 MH/s from 250W is not THAT good. I can do ~24 MH/s with a tuned Hawaii using maybe 150-160W at the PSU, and that's about the same level of efficiency. Polaris does better, as do 1070s. Some folks have claimed 43 MH/s @ 100W but those reports may be bogus or due to misreporting of data. As an ETH miner, I'm not impressed with Vega thus far.

WCCFTECH also did 40MH/s at 200W.Thats better efficiency than 24 at 150 , as is 44 at 250W, thing is you can also do with less cards, smaller rig etc.
As for mining, yea, hawaii is still great, i do cryptonight(monero) at 820H/s at 150W 1030/1275 with undervolt to 1.055v .RX 480 does 720 at 110W.

And one vega can do this
https://i.imgur.com/qYGrudN.png
Unfortunately i see very conflicting and weird scores people get, however it seems to me problem with these scores lies between chair and display so i will test it myself if i can get vega with adequate cooling at a decent price.
After some reading i think i may get 1100H/s at 110W power, but i have not seen any decent cryptonight testing.

[drmrlordx]

Correct. Germany proved this after decoupling their currency from gold post WW1 to be able to offer better export pricing.

Excess printing of currency ruined the economy of the Weimar Republic.

WCCFTECH also did 40MH/s at 200W.Thats better efficiency than 24 at 150 , as is 44 at 250W, thing is you can also do with less cards, smaller rig etc.
As for mining, yea, hawaii is still great, i do cryptonight(monero) at 820H/s at 150W 1030/1275 with undervolt to 1.055v .RX 480 does 720 at 110W.

Hawaii is old, so I was expecting it to take a back seat to Polaris and Vega. Polaris has shown up pretty well on the mining scene, but you can still get more total output (read: higher density) from a 390 or a Nano or something. And from a Vega. But the results from Vega, as you pointed out, are all over the map, so I'm not 100% sure what to think about it right now. Plus Vega should be handing Hawaii its ass in terms of overall efficiency right now, which it really isn't. Hawaii is only using ~.568W more per MH/s than Vega.

[AliG]

Excess printing of currency ruined the economy of the Weimar Republic.

Not really. You're twisting history to fulfill your narrative: it was the reparations from the Treaty of Versailles that was driving the country bankrupt. Printing more bills has nothing to do with decoupling from gold.

[drmrlordx]

Not really. You're twisting history to fulfill your narrative: it was the reparations from the Treaty of Versailles that was driving the country bankrupt. Printing more bills has nothing to do with decoupling from gold.

Why do you think they printed so much currency? Reparations, among other things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperi...eimar_Republic

Their entire strategy for dealing with debt in pre-Weimar and during the Weimar period revolved around printing more money after decoupling from the gold standard. Hyperinflation ensued.

Anyway, crypto can not afford to "hide" excess printing of currency through Treasury/banker manipulation of interest rates or what have you. If you issue too many units of crypto, you reduce the market price of crypto almost instantly. See XRP. Bitcoin maximalists point to the maximum possible allocation of Bitcoins - 21 million - as one reason why Bitcoin will never suffer inflation. They're only partially correct - if, for any reason, Bitcoin is deemed less useful as a medium of exchange than at the present, then the amount of goods and services one can reasonably expect to receive in exchange for 1 BTC will decline, leading to currency inflation without any change in circulation numbers. But it will help fight inflation simply because the blockchain tech prevents senseless over-issuance of currency.

Some fear Ethereum will suffer inflation. Buterin has already nipped that fear in the bud by announcing that post-Casper, Ethereum will reduce the "mining" rate of ETH to 0-4%, with the possibility of negative currency issuance via "burning" of ETH paid for gas (transaction fees). I don't know what the maximum effective circulation numbers will be for ETH, but it will actually have lower overall inflation than BTC for awhile, at least until BTC approaches is preprogrammed maximum. There is no preprogrammed maximum for ETH. Yet.

Other cryptos will handle circulation numbers in their own ways; regardless, it's obvious that markets respond best to those coins that (among other things) have strict rules of currency issuance that can not be ignored by fiat. It is guaranteed scarcity, with the promise that new mines or new supplies found by surveyors (or what have you) can not alter that condition of scarcity. So you basically avoid the problems of the gold standard and the problems of fiat currency. The downside is that you actually have to convince people that your cryptocoin is a useful unit of barter. Apparently that problem is fast vanishing.

[AliG]

The downside is that you actually have to convince people that your cryptocoin is a useful unit of barter. Apparently that problem is fast vanishing.

So I'm going to ignore the history part, as the hyperinflation would have occurred with bitcoin just as easily (doesn't matter what backs your dollar if you print more).

There is no evidence the majority of the world believes crypto is a useful unit of batter. Just today a major bank CEO literally called it a fraud. There's nothing backing it - at all. I don't disagree you can use it to exchange hands; what everyone else is claiming is there is literally 0 reason it should be worth $4000 USD per unit.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/jpmo...d-quarter.html

And btw, the fact people hoard them entirely defeats its usefulness as currency. You need liquidity for that.