As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly works its complex magic on one sector of the economy after another, there is an increasingly pressing need for compute resources to power all this machine intelligence. Training a model like ChatGPT costs more than $5 million, and running the early ChatGPT demo, even before usage increased to its current level, costs OpenAI around $100,000 per day. And AI is more than just text generation; applying AI to practical problems across multiple industries requires similar large neural models trained on a diversity of data types — medical, financial, customer information, geospatial and so forth. Moving …
What is the future of GPU mining? The future of GPU mining depends upon miners’ willingness to continue mining alternative GPU mineable cryptocurrencies. Mining, the foundation of PoW cryptocurrencies, may continue to flourish, given that energy costs are low for GPU miners. Moreover, the application of graphics processing units beyond mining, including graphics designing, gaming and video editing, make them ideal for fixed capital investment. Also, when one blockchain migrates to alternative consensus algorithms, GPU miners can utilize their rigs to mine other cryptocurrencies. This implies that GPU miners can continue using their mining rigs during events like the Merge, …
Cryptocurrency mining involves using a computer, or several computers, to validate transactions on a blockchain. Technically, these computers solve cryptographic equations and record data in a digital ledger. The more computers solving equations, the faster the blockchain can validate transactions. When miners verify the hashes of unconfirmed blocks, they receive a reward for each verified hash. Mining can be energy and computationally-intensive, requiring specialized hardware and crypto-mining software. Among the most mined (and most profitable) cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR), Ravencoin (RVN), and Dogecoin (DOGE). Ether (ETH) used to be part of this list but Ethereum has recently shifted …
Throughout the month of October, Bitcoin's (BTC) hash rate surged by 10.8% as it recorded new all-time highs on a daily basis. While the increase in hash rate ensures greater security for the Bitcoin network, multitudes of factors contribute to the metric. Falling GPU prices Hash rate relates to the computing power required by Bitcoin miners to mine a block. As a result, a higher hash rate demands stronger mining rigs that could help miners mine a block and earn mining rewards. As global markets recovered from chip shortages in 2022, the prices of the graphics processing units (GPU) — …
As the Ethereum network’s move to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism drives adoption from institutional investors, the prices for graphics processing units (GPUs), often used for mining cryptocurrencies like Ether (ETH), have gone down in China. Following the historic Ethereum Merge on Sept. 15, the previously highly sought-out Nvidia GeForce GPUs have become significantly cheaper according to a report by the South China Morning Post. Peng, a Chinese merchant, gave the RTX 3080 as an example as the GPU’s price dropped from 8,000 yuan (1118 USD) to 5,000 yuan within 3 months. According to Peng, when Bitcoin (BTC) mining was …
Cryptocurrencies have been in a bear trend since mid-August after they failed to break above the $1.2 trillion market capitalization resistance. Even with the current bear trend and a brutal 25% correction, it has not been enough to break the 3-month-long ascending trend. The crypto markets' aggregate capitalization declined 7.2% to $920 billion in the 7 days leading to Sept. 21. Investors wanted to play it safe ahead of the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting, which decided to increase the interest rate by 0.75%. By increasing the cost of borrowing cash, the monetary authority aims to curb inflationary pressure while …
Cryptocurrency miner Hive Blockchain has been working to replace the mining of Ether (ETH) with other coins in the event of Ethereum’s upcoming transition to Proof of Stake, or PoS. The Canadian crypto mining firm has been analyzing options for mining with its GPU stash ahead of the Ethereum Merge, Hive said in its latest production update on Tuesday. According to the update, Hive started implementing beta-testing of various GPU-mineable coins this week as the Ethereum Merge PoS is expected to occur in mid-September. Hive’s technical division is specifically implementing a strategy to optimize its Ethereum mining capacity, which amounts …
The Ethereum network’s transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus is likely to flood the crypto industry with out-of-work ETH miners, causing severe disruption to all PoW tokens. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Andy Long, CEO of Bitcoin miner White Rock believes the upcoming Ethereum Merge will force PoW miners to look for greener pastures, such as other PoW blockchains, and thus "swamp” other coins — increasing mining difficulty and reducing profitability, stating: "As GPU miners point their hardware at other chains their difficulty will increase causing lower returns and splitting the reward amongst more miners." Long added that the migration will likely …
As a direct result of falling Bitcoin (BTC) prices, total revenue earned by miners in transaction fees and mining rewards dropped to its one-year lows at nearly $15 million on July 4. However, a concurrent fall in graphic cards or GPU prices is set to help miners offset their operational costs amid an ongoing bear market. Bitcoin mining revenue fell 79.6% over a period of 9 months, ever since reaching an all-time high of $74.4 million on October 25, 2021. In addition, a global chip shortage and the coronavirus pandemic shot up prices of the most important part of a …
Over the last couple of years, the world has been grappling with the lack of semiconductors, which are the substances that conduct electricity between metals and isolates. The most famous semiconductor is silicon. If correlating this concept to electronic devices, then the key semiconductors are processors and other microcircuits that are present in almost all devices that people use every day, from smartphones to cars. In 2021, semiconductors hit a world record in terms of sales. Electronics production also boomed, with hundreds of millions of complex semiconductors being devoured by gaming consoles. The number of GPUs produced grew to unseen …
A hacking group that infiltrated Nvidia servers last month is attempting to sell software that could unlock crypto mining hash rate limiters on the firm’s flagship graphics cards. A South American hacking group going by the name LAPSUS$ claims to have stolen a terabyte of data from Nvidia servers in late February. The group is now offering software in the form of a customized driver to unlock limiters the company has put on its high-end graphics cards. Nvidia stated that it became aware of the incident on Feb. 23, and stated, according to reports on Mar. 2: “We are aware …
An individual Ether (ETH) miner struck it big by mining a block on their own and receiving a reward valued at about $540,000. The miner was operating through the 2miners Ethereum SOLO pool on Jan. 17 when they mined an entire block and received 168 ETH. That reward vastly outstrips the per-block average reward of about 4 ETH according to BitInfoCharts. Adding to the remarkable nature of the reward is the size and hash power of the SOLO pool. It is relatively small with 854 miners online and 1.5 Tera hashes per second at time of writing, meaning that the …