Mining at these prices doesn't even make sense. Just buy 100(0)[0] Etherium and wait for inevitable Jackpot. Buy while it's low, sell when it gets high, become wealthy. Why even bother with mining apart from hobby and such?
Everyone tries to some degree to buy low and sell high, but the other way around is about as common. If you're considering "investing" in ethereum, then unless you bought in well before now, the evidence is against your ability to buy low.
It's as I said above: investing in cryptocurrencies is betting that traditional currencies issued by governments are going to go away and be replaced by cryptocurrencies. If that's going to happen, then the collective value of cryptocurrencies should be several times what it is. But if it's not going to happen, then the value of cryptocurrencies should be a tiny fraction of what it is now, if not zero outright.
But even if it does happen, it's probably not going to be that all cryptocurrencies rise like that in value. It will probably be one or maybe a few that dominate, while the rest disappear. If you buy a ton of bitcoins or ethereum and some other cryptocurrency becomes the world standard currency, you'll still lose whatever you invested.
It's also very possible that cryptocurrencies will eventually replace national currencies, but the one that comes to dominate doesn't even exist yet. Governments aren't likely to give up seigniorage without a fight, and if cryptocurrencies issued and backed by governments become the standard, all of the ones in circulation today will be worthless.
Even if you do believe that cryptocurrencies available today are the future, I think that the future of bitcoin would still be bleak. It just can't clear transactions fast enough to be useful as even a lightly used side currency, let alone the world standard.
It does not apply generally. What you say is true only for certain cryptos.
For instance, investing in Ripple's XRP, which is one of the main cryptos soon to become the dominant one, in my opinion, is definitely not betting that FIAT currencies get replaced.
Let's suppose that tomorrow, Canada decided to adopt Ripple as its national currency and drop the Canadian Dollar. Meanwhile, the rest of the world decided to treat Ripple the same way that they had formerly treated the Canadian Dollar. That would be heralded as a huge advance for acceptance of cryptocurrencies as one became a major national currency, and rightly so. It would also suggest that Ripple was overvalued and should drop in price.
If you're betting that Ripple will become the dominant cryptocurrency to the degree that all others go away, even then, to justify Ripple to going up in value, it would still have to become a widely used currency somewhere. It wouldn't have to become dominant worldwide the way that the collective basket of cryptocurrencies would in order to justify higher values. But a market capitalization around $80 billion US is still an awful lot.
The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is so outlandish that it's hard to describe. Any accurate description is likely to sound like hyperbole.
@Quizzical The other advantage that Maxwell had was its power efficiency. Which @DMKano 's buddy obviously considered.
For those unaware cryptocurrency "mining" can be thought of as searching for prime numbers. Something I assume most people are familiar with.
Once an "algorithm" is set up the first results - "coins" - will emerge quickly. Subsequent "coins" take increasing amounts of computation and so become more and more expensive and consequently less attractive. In theory an electronic currency the amount of which is limited could exist. If a standard was ever agreed. And then there is the issue of chips becoming more powerful and, in particular, more power efficient.
The power aspect is a big thing. Its why Kodak's share price rose mid-week when they said they were hiring out banks of cards. It wasn't on the back of them setting up the banks of cards it rose because of massive underused power generating facility they have - meaning they can supply power much cheaper.
That is not the use case of the currency though. XRP does not aim at replacing national currencies.
It is a digital liquidity asset which competes neither with currencies like Bitcoin for instance, nor with FIAT currencies. On the contrary, both cryptos and FIAT currencies can move over the Ripple net and when these are being exchanged one for another, XRP is used as a "middleman" (i.e. Currency A -> XRP -> currency B.)
The price of XRP is then determined by the value of those transactions. Using current, inefficient SWIFT based systems with high costs and long transaction times, the volume of these cross border payments is in trillions USD / day. Once sending value gets as easy as sending an email, the volume is likely to increase significantly.
I am inclined to believe that XRP is currently the only crypto the market cap of which is still low comparing to what it should be. On the level of any other crypto, I would agree that the market caps are far too high and this is because they either dont have a use case or they do not yet have a product which would be ready for massive utilization. Most of them are mere scientific experiments. Ripple having a whole portfolio of products ready to be sold and used, which is actually happening around the world now, distinguishes it from the other digital assets.
When I said dominant, I did not mean it will cause other cryptocurrencies go away, but rather exceed them in the market cap.
What is the advantage of using Ripple over traditional methods? As you describe it, there are two currency exchanges rather than one, which looks to me like it would make the situation worse, not better.
Even if Ripple can make the exchange massively cheaper than before, that would require Ripple taking a far smaller cut of the sale than current methods. If you're taking a 0.2% commission rather than a 2% commission on the exchange (made up numbers, as I don't know what the real numbers are), that gives people reasons to switch to your system but the smaller commission means that there still isn't a ton of money to be made there.
@Quizzical The other advantage that Maxwell had was its power efficiency. Which @DMKano 's buddy obviously considered.
Power efficiency at what? Maxwell had better power efficiency at most games than the contemporary GCN because it simply didn't have a lot of the compute stuff that GCN did. That was extra overhead not needed for games, but when you leave graphics behind and focus on compute, GCN (either Hawaii or Fiji, depending on the algorithm) handily destroyed Maxwell in a lot of algorithms. Using a little less power for a lot less performance is not an improvement in energy efficiency. To take a fairly extreme corner case, if you're into double-precision compute, the integrated GPU in AMD's 35 W Carrizo APU would beat a 250 W Titan X outright in absolute performance.
Yes, there are also algorithms where Maxwell was efficient more efficient than anything AMD had. But once you leave behind graphics, don't assume that graphics results are typical of other compute. They aren't.
The problem I see with current Crypto-currency is that they are incredibly deflationary. For a currency to be used for transactions, you need price stability and the artificial scarcity in Crypto currency makes them unideal for this. Crypto currency has some major advantages, but unless they can get quicker transaction times, ease of use, and price stability; they won't be replacing current fiat currencies.
lol Ripple. . saw that go up. . checked my email because I thought I had some. "Thanks for beta testing Ripple. . just open you digital wallet and enter (blah blah blah) and get 1000 free Ripple.
Did I? . . nope! that was 2013 and I was hooked on Litecoin and BTC.
The argument about mining is always interesting. I decided against a new video card and threw $100 at Bitcoin when it was $15. . well it was $30 by the time I got it in and could buy.
BUT. . I stopped mining litecoin because I was just barely breaking even. . imagine if I had continued. It is a great investment. . even at a loss at the time if it continues to rise as it has. Putting money in right away is still the best option though.
I thought it was nuts when it hit $1000 so fast so I sold. . been buying, selling and watching the market every since. Bitcoin seems like a but of a Ponzi scheme, Eth, which I have been sticking with for a few weeks is a little sketchy but similar to Ripple in some ways. I am still surprised at how low Litecoin is valued.
AMD might take a hit if this whole things ends badly. I'll be getting out soon myself.
One important thing about Ripple is that it isn't mined. For Bitcoin and other early cryptocurrencies, they needed a way to distribute who starts out with the currency broadly, and came up with mining. Otherwise, they would basically be saying, I made up a currency and printed a bunch of it. Want to buy some? You can do that for more specialized uses, but not for a broadly applicable currency. Making the currency created by mining meant that the people who mined it wanted for it to be worth something--and wanted that value to go up. If you'd like the market value of something to rise, having a large number of people personally invested in wanting to see it rise doesn't hurt.
But a lot of the newer cryptocurrencies aren't mined like that. If Ripple were to take over the world and the mined currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum disappear, then the run on GPUs would end, as you can't use them to mine Ripple. Here's a table of the most valuable cryptocurrencies:
An asterisk in the "circulating supply" column means that it isn't mined. Bitcoin and Ethereum are on top, of course, but look how many of those currencies aren't mined. Less than 23% of the top 250 are mined.
AMD is basically advertising, since all the consumer GPUs are out of stock, you miners should buy professional GPUs and use them for mining instead. And with prices as they are, they're actually right about that, at least at the moment.
What happens if the mined cryptocurrencies crash hard? At that point, the miners will have a ton of GPUs that aren't useful for mining anymore. They might hold onto them for a while in hopes that prices will go back up. But we could see a glut of used Polaris 10-based GPUs hit the market.
I'm actually surprised the RX 480 4GB are still selling used for $300. You can' really use them to mine Ethereum anymore and other currency that would be minable by them don't have a speculative bubble pushing the price up.
I'm actually surprised the RX 480 4GB are still selling used for $300. You can' really use them to mine Ethereum anymore and other currency that would be minable by them don't have a speculative bubble pushing the price up.
As best as I can tell, the current Ethereum DAG size is about 2.3 GB. While a Radeon RX 480 won't allow you to allocate more than half of its memory in a single buffer, I'd think you'd be able to use most of that 4 GB by splitting it between two buffers.
So what you're telling me is.....watch BTC and buy a card when it's low lol.
If you want to get a used GPU that has been stressed pretty hard for cheap, then maybe. But Ethereum is the one to watch, not Bitcoin. Bitcoin moved to ASICs years ago. And what matters for the miners selling off cards is not just that the price drops, but that they believe that it isn't going to recover.
Why would you spend tens of thousands to setup a single mining rig? The board is like $200, and the cards are like $300. So with 8 packed onto a board that's at best $3000.
Why would you spend tens of thousands to setup a single mining rig? The board is like $200, and the cards are like $300. So with 8 packed onto a board that's at best $3000.
I have heard of people with multiple 8 cars rigs... dozens of cards cranking on their basement. Just got asked by a guy to upgrade his residential power service to 3 phase light industrial so he could run even more cards.
Why would you spend tens of thousands to setup a single mining rig? The board is like $200, and the cards are like $300. So with 8 packed onto a board that's at best $3000.
Have you had a look at prices on cards lately?
Took a quick look a few days ago. The RX 480 4GB is around $300, and the Vega Frontier Edition is around $700. I could not see myself paying more for a card for mining.
I swear that if there are any petitions I need to sign or if anyone knows of any to ban cryptocurrency from the United States making it illegal I will sign in favor as long as this is going on because Crypto Currency should have their own ASIC miners, not be using computer hardware, and create this problem for users.
You could check on apps such as LetItGo, or Offer Up I do from time to time see graphics cards used going on there for a decent price.
Do you want to fight back against these cryptocurrency miners?
Well as lots of graphics cards have been bought up by them eventually their cards will start to lose profits and no longer be able to mine within 1 year a lot of these cards will go for sale on sites such as Ebay, Simply do not buy used cards like this because they likely come from other countries / China that has used and worn them down a lot anyway.
They also do the same thing with battery in China they use them until they are almost dead and will only work for like 1-2 charges below capacity and they resell them and people buy them especially 18650 battery also used in Lap-Top and you get scammed found this out on Amazon, if it comes from China, don't buy it because the high capacity never ever reaches 6000 MAH as described.
Opponents say it's the beginning of the bursting of the bubble.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/17/bitcoin-selloff-deepens-digital-currency-now-down-50-recent-peak/1040033001/ It's probably not the entire house of cards coming down (yet), but it is a pretty stark correction. This is just Bitcoin. so it doesn't necessarily pertain to all those other currencies that are getting mined via GPUs. However, most general people tend to think there is just one "Digital Currency" and lump it all under the Bitcoin name. If it gets bad press, all digital currency may as well be getting the same bad press, or at least in so far as it pertains to the average USA Today or Fox News consumer.
As far as wishing crytpocurrency banned just because I want to get my hands on cheaper GPUs again...
I don't know.
I could see a lot of good coming from blockchain tech if it's legitimized in the right way, so I don't know that I would wish the entire thing to hell just because I want to build another computer.
Right now the issue is that no one knows what the future of cryptocurrency is going to be. The GPU manufacturers are estatic that they are seeing record high sales, for sure. But they are also afraid of boosting production to meet demand in case the bottom drops out again, and they get stuck with a lot of inventory to cut.
If it cleanly broke one way or another: we knew Crytpo was here to stay and mining via GPUs was the way to move forward - you can be certain that AIBs and GPU manufacturers would be all over it, with very specific mining SKUs (we've already seen a couple, but they are rare birds). Production would ramp up to meet demand, and we'd get back to something like normalcy. I don't think we'll get back to price parity with the past, but closer than we are now.
Or if we knew that either Cryptocurrency was on the way out, the bubble breaks, or mining could shift to some more dedicated equipment than consumer GPUs (such as Bitcoin with ASICs). Then miners would shift to that equipment, and GPUs would stabilize back out.
The people who will make a killing (or lose their shirts) on Cyptocurrency aren't the miners. It will be the investors who just are good at buying low and selling high. Why bother with the hard labor of mining when you can make money work for you to much greater effect.
As far as wishing crytpocurrency banned just because I want to get my hands on cheaper GPUs again...
I don't know.
Having cryptocurrency banned so that graphic cards become cheaper should be completely unacceptable for anyone living in Western Countries. We have free market, freedom to do business, and freedom to innovate. We should never limit those freedoms for something as unimportant as keeping GPU prices steady.
There might be other good reasons why cryptocurrencies should be regulated or even banned, but GPU market should not be one of those reasons. Let the free market do its job.
I've heard rumours from people in computer retail that Nvidia have already shifted all their production to the next generation of graphics cards that will release in the first half of 2018, to build up stock for release. The reason they don't announce it publicly is because they want to sell out the stocks of 10-series cards first, like they usually try to before a new release. If it's true then it could be really hard to find graphics cards for some time once the stocks of 10-series cards start selling out.
The next generation of cards release in March at the earliest from what I've heard and the demand from miners will likely be high. It could take some time before they are available at reasonable prices in stores. This is all based on rumours and guesses from people in computer retail. Judging by the lack of cards in my regular stores in the EU right now and the fact that the 10-series is two years old soon, it sounds plausible to me.
Anytime there is a dip in the price of crypto-currency, there will always be someone saying it is the end of the Crypto-bubble. Much like anytime there is a dip in the price of gold. The difference is if crypto's lose investor interest, late adopters are out a lot of money much like home owners in 2008. Where as with gold, you still have the gold. Personally, I think this is a minor correction due to a very high jump in value at the end of December going into January. End of 2018 price prediction on Ethereum was around $1000. Where it is at right now. Price prediction on ADA at end of 2018 was $1.00, where it is at right now. The price prediction on Bitcoin was at $10k, where it is at right now. So to me it's just a correction in the price after a major upswing. As long as cryptos are useful in transferring funds between currencies, it will remain of high value.
Anytime there is a dip in the price of crypto-currency, there will always be someone saying it is the end of the Crypto-bubble. Much like anytime there is a dip in the price of gold. The difference is if crypto's lose investor interest, late adopters are out a lot of money much like home owners in 2008. Where as with gold, you still have the gold. Personally, I think this is a minor correction due to a very high jump in value at the end of December going into January. End of 2018 price prediction on Ethereum was around $1000. Where it is at right now. Price prediction on ADA at end of 2018 was $1.00, where it is at right now. The price prediction on Bitcoin was at $10k, where it is at right now. So to me it's just a correction in the price after a major upswing. As long as cryptos are useful in transferring funds between currencies, it will remain of high value.
Losing nearly 50% of value is never a minor price correction.
Comments
If you're betting that Ripple will become the dominant cryptocurrency to the degree that all others go away, even then, to justify Ripple to going up in value, it would still have to become a widely used currency somewhere. It wouldn't have to become dominant worldwide the way that the collective basket of cryptocurrencies would in order to justify higher values. But a market capitalization around $80 billion US is still an awful lot.
The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is so outlandish that it's hard to describe. Any accurate description is likely to sound like hyperbole.
For those unaware cryptocurrency "mining" can be thought of as searching for prime numbers. Something I assume most people are familiar with.
Once an "algorithm" is set up the first results - "coins" - will emerge quickly. Subsequent "coins" take increasing amounts of computation and so become more and more expensive and consequently less attractive. In theory an electronic currency the amount of which is limited could exist. If a standard was ever agreed. And then there is the issue of chips becoming more powerful and, in particular, more power efficient.
The power aspect is a big thing. Its why Kodak's share price rose mid-week when they said they were hiring out banks of cards. It wasn't on the back of them setting up the banks of cards it rose because of massive underused power generating facility they have - meaning they can supply power much cheaper.
Even if Ripple can make the exchange massively cheaper than before, that would require Ripple taking a far smaller cut of the sale than current methods. If you're taking a 0.2% commission rather than a 2% commission on the exchange (made up numbers, as I don't know what the real numbers are), that gives people reasons to switch to your system but the smaller commission means that there still isn't a ton of money to be made there.
Yes, there are also algorithms where Maxwell was efficient more efficient than anything AMD had. But once you leave behind graphics, don't assume that graphics results are typical of other compute. They aren't.
Crypto currency has some major advantages, but unless they can get quicker transaction times, ease of use, and price stability; they won't be replacing current fiat currencies.
Did I? . . nope! that was 2013 and I was hooked on Litecoin and BTC.
The argument about mining is always interesting. I decided against a new video card and threw $100 at Bitcoin when it was $15. . well it was $30 by the time I got it in and could buy.
BUT. . I stopped mining litecoin because I was just barely breaking even. . imagine if I had continued. It is a great investment. . even at a loss at the time if it continues to rise as it has. Putting money in right away is still the best option though.
I thought it was nuts when it hit $1000 so fast so I sold. . been buying, selling and watching the market every since. Bitcoin seems like a but of a Ponzi scheme, Eth, which I have been sticking with for a few weeks is a little sketchy but similar to Ripple in some ways. I am still surprised at how low Litecoin is valued.
AMD might take a hit if this whole things ends badly. I'll be getting out soon myself.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
But a lot of the newer cryptocurrencies aren't mined like that. If Ripple were to take over the world and the mined currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum disappear, then the run on GPUs would end, as you can't use them to mine Ripple. Here's a table of the most valuable cryptocurrencies:
https://coinmarketcap.com/1
An asterisk in the "circulating supply" column means that it isn't mined. Bitcoin and Ethereum are on top, of course, but look how many of those currencies aren't mined. Less than 23% of the top 250 are mined.
https://promotions.newegg.com/amd/17-5388/index.html?cm_sp=Cat_Video-Cards-Video-Devices-_-amd/17-5388-_-//promotions.newegg.com/amd/17-5388/1920x360.jpg&icid=427323
AMD is basically advertising, since all the consumer GPUs are out of stock, you miners should buy professional GPUs and use them for mining instead. And with prices as they are, they're actually right about that, at least at the moment.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAB946RH3654&cm_re=1080ti-_-9SIAB946RH3654-_-Product
I swear that if there are any petitions I need to sign or if anyone knows of any to ban cryptocurrency from the United States making it illegal I will sign in favor as long as this is going on because Crypto Currency should have their own ASIC miners, not be using computer hardware, and create this problem for users.
You could check on apps such as LetItGo, or Offer Up I do from time to time see graphics cards used going on there for a decent price.
Do you want to fight back against these cryptocurrency miners?
Well as lots of graphics cards have been bought up by them eventually their cards will start to lose profits and no longer be able to mine within 1 year a lot of these cards will go for sale on sites such as Ebay, Simply do not buy used cards like this because they likely come from other countries / China that has used and worn them down a lot anyway.
They also do the same thing with battery in China they use them until they are almost dead and will only work for like 1-2 charges below capacity and they resell them and people buy them especially 18650 battery also used in Lap-Top and you get scammed found this out on Amazon, if it comes from China, don't buy it because the high capacity never ever reaches 6000 MAH as described.
Opponents say it's the beginning of the bursting of the bubble.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/17/bitcoin-selloff-deepens-digital-currency-now-down-50-recent-peak/1040033001/
It's probably not the entire house of cards coming down (yet), but it is a pretty stark correction. This is just Bitcoin. so it doesn't necessarily pertain to all those other currencies that are getting mined via GPUs. However, most general people tend to think there is just one "Digital Currency" and lump it all under the Bitcoin name. If it gets bad press, all digital currency may as well be getting the same bad press, or at least in so far as it pertains to the average USA Today or Fox News consumer.
I don't know.
I could see a lot of good coming from blockchain tech if it's legitimized in the right way, so I don't know that I would wish the entire thing to hell just because I want to build another computer.
Right now the issue is that no one knows what the future of cryptocurrency is going to be. The GPU manufacturers are estatic that they are seeing record high sales, for sure. But they are also afraid of boosting production to meet demand in case the bottom drops out again, and they get stuck with a lot of inventory to cut.
If it cleanly broke one way or another: we knew Crytpo was here to stay and mining via GPUs was the way to move forward - you can be certain that AIBs and GPU manufacturers would be all over it, with very specific mining SKUs (we've already seen a couple, but they are rare birds). Production would ramp up to meet demand, and we'd get back to something like normalcy. I don't think we'll get back to price parity with the past, but closer than we are now.
Or if we knew that either Cryptocurrency was on the way out, the bubble breaks, or mining could shift to some more dedicated equipment than consumer GPUs (such as Bitcoin with ASICs). Then miners would shift to that equipment, and GPUs would stabilize back out.
The people who will make a killing (or lose their shirts) on Cyptocurrency aren't the miners. It will be the investors who just are good at buying low and selling high. Why bother with the hard labor of mining when you can make money work for you to much greater effect.
There might be other good reasons why cryptocurrencies should be regulated or even banned, but GPU market should not be one of those reasons. Let the free market do its job.
The next generation of cards release in March at the earliest from what I've heard and the demand from miners will likely be high. It could take some time before they are available at reasonable prices in stores. This is all based on rumours and guesses from people in computer retail. Judging by the lack of cards in my regular stores in the EU right now and the fact that the 10-series is two years old soon, it sounds plausible to me.
Personally, I think this is a minor correction due to a very high jump in value at the end of December going into January. End of 2018 price prediction on Ethereum was around $1000. Where it is at right now. Price prediction on ADA at end of 2018 was $1.00, where it is at right now. The price prediction on Bitcoin was at $10k, where it is at right now. So to me it's just a correction in the price after a major upswing. As long as cryptos are useful in transferring funds between currencies, it will remain of high value.