Kougar wrote:My Vega RX 64 for some strange reason goes up to 1.6Ghz and GPU utilization is through the roof, while my private youtube videos (no subscribers and a few views) barely make a hit. Coincidence? I think not. A week ago the same popular videos barely utillize my GPU.
That's a bit unusual, as that article (and everything else I've seen) is about the coinhive javascipt miner, which doesn't utilize the GPU. CryptoNight (and thus Monero) doesn't have such a huge difference between GPU and CPU anyway.
The Egg wrote:Here's where I'm going with this: Someone (ideally a group of people) ought to appeal to those in charge of the most problematic currencies, and make them aware of the damage they're causing to the GPU and gaming industries.
hahahhahahaha
The Egg wrote:They also need to be made aware of how their intent behind making currencies ASIC-resistant has completely and utterly failed (as proven by the current cost of GPUs, and complete destruction of their supply).
Uh... But It hasn't failed, it's worked too well: If ASICs were more feasible for the newer PoWs that were intended to be ASIC-resistant, we wouldn't have this GPU price problem.
The Egg wrote:I know. And now that "widely available consumer hardware" is no longer widely available, and prices are in the stratosphere, meaning the average person can no longer participate on an even footing. It's no different than if they were using ASICs, except for the unintended side-effect of destroying the GPU and PC gaming industry.
It's still way more decentralized than bitmain, as JBI said. They've achieved their goal.
I could buy a 1070 for 1k USD or whatever. I won't, but it's getting to the point where the only real vendor of miners (the aforementioned bitmain) essentially isn't even selling the newest ones publicly anymore: they are using them to mine themselves! They obviously are making a ton, because they are now a non-trivial portion of TSMC's production so we see it in disclosures, but yet they are rarely available and when they are they are sold in excruciating small batches (and for BCH, just to be even more weird).
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the miners they do sell are the binned ones that need higher voltage.
The Egg wrote:I disagree. When cards are $1400, the userbase is not growing. The only people buying those cards are already hardcore miners.
First off, this just happened suddenly like 3 weeks ago.
Second off, look, you're just wrong, because I've seen people who say they've never mined before posting stacks of 1070s etc... There are lots and lots of indications like that, all over place. There are also lots of eth miners who didn't mine just 2 months ago who are mining again now, sometimes buying additional cards to do it.
Now, maybe they are all lying (
), but why would they? I mean, even I could buy a new 1070 from Newegg for 1k USD and be mining by the end of this week. That's completely feasible.
Third off, it isn't like other non-ASIC resistant coins: If I want to buy an antminer S9, I have to spend like 4-8 thousand on a disreputable retailer and wait months. Or get BCH and buy one new from bitmain directly and wait months (at best!).
The ROI (and I am being ridiculously optimistic here, the concept is bankrupt but I'm at least comparing like-to-like the way perspective miners would) is 12 months for the 1070 and eth, but closer to 18-30 months for the S9 and btc.
It's just not comparable.
Kougar wrote:Speaking of gold, looks like Australia and Venezuela are planning to launch gold-backed crypto-currencies. Things might get even more crazy after all.
Venezuela is an absolute basket case, and a government-owned (not even federal, but state!) but independent mint (which makes all sort of collectibles for retail sale) really isn't "Australia" either.
The Egg wrote:Do I need evidence to show that sky-high prices and a product being sold-out/unavailable everywhere will hinder new user growth dependent on said product? Sure, you might have a few lunatics with lots of money to throw at something because they heard all the hype, but to that type of person, the difference between buying a ridiculously expensive GPU and a similarly expensive ASIC is inconsequential. So we're back to there being no difference between GPUs and ASICs at this point.
This doesn't make any sense for multiple reasons.
First off, they are sold out because people are buying them. Individuals, not companies. I mean, this is bluntly backwards, prices increase because DEMAND increases. As a simplification, the instantaneous price of a unit has nothing to do with the number of units: if I have a shop selling ten widgets,
I have shop telling ten widgets regardless of price. There aren't, instantaneously, more widgets available if I price them at 1 dollar versus a million dollars.
Yes, yes, this is complicated because individuals are buying things by the cart, but even then,
those are all miners! What has happened is that gamers like me are priced out, to be replaced virtually entirely by miners who are willing to pay 3x-4x as much. This means, even if not even close to 1:1, that we virtually certainly must have more miners now.
Second off, as I just said above, different use = different users. Gaming users aren't growing, sure. Mining users, yes.
Third off, to a miner, yes, the difference is huge. The currencies involved are completely different, so there are entirely different speculative elements, especially since GPUs can potentially do a variety of different PoWs, ASIC can only ever do one. The amounts are different: $1500 is not $4000(the low end price for a viable SHA256 miner), such a difference *is* consequential. The delay is different, you can get a 1070 within a week. A btc miner? LOL(and they'll make you prepay, ASIC miner sales shenanigans are persistant). And, finally, the commodity is different: if the miner becomes uneconomical, it's junk. A 1070 has a dual-use which means I could recover ~300 USD in value for it, even if all crypto-currencies go uneconomical.
cynan wrote:I think that's giving them too much credit. If they did think that far, then they would have made mining contingent on immediate verification (ie, it only counts if it is immediately verifiable through some sort of peer-to-peer connection).
That article is unbelievably awful and wrong, but Captain Ned is right that liquidity is a massive problem in the crypto world.
To start with, the block reward is what subsidizes mining, which the article COMPLETELY FAILS TO MENTION. That alone makes it worthless.
That's just the start with the litany of utterly wrong and idiotic things in it, though.
