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Tensions have surfaced between gamers, cryptocurrency miners and chipmakers.
content overview
content overview
1. The report shows that the computing power restriction measures implemented by NVIDIA GPUs to prevent cryptocurrency mining have now been bypassed by miners.
2. Nvidia, and its rival AMD, are developing dedicated chipsets for crypto miners.
Gamers and miners have been at loggerheads ever since cryptocurrency miners realized that graphics processing units (GPUs), which are used to process the demanding visuals of PC games, could mine. Grabbing, resulting in tight inventory, soaring prices, and ultimately leaving gamers with nothing.
This tension flared up again last week, with reports that GPU maker Nvidia has imposed limits on chip computing power to prevent miners from mining cryptocurrencies, and that chips will be less efficient if miners are found to be mining cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum. After the news was disclosed, some industry experts said that it is almost impossible to circumvent the chip computing power limit set by Nvidia. The program version can bypass Nvidia's graphics card mining power limit.
Meanwhile, chipmakers have recently struggled with issues such as scarcity of raw materials, and miners have struggled with ethereum's move to a proof-of-stake consensus model that will eventually eliminate mining altogether.
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Dedicated GPU for Ethereum
In February of this year, Nvidia launched a dedicated chipset for Ethereum miners, but at the same time, the company announced that it would limit the computing power of the new graphics card RTX 3060 GPU, which means that crypto miners will not be able to achieve the expected results using this graphics card. . According to relevant reports, the transmission speed of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is about 40-45 MH/s, but once mining starts, the speed will drop to 20-25 MH/s. Using this mod will help miners unleash the full potential of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, up to 50 MH/s
The move by Nvidia is seen as a response to gamers, many of whom are concerned that a surge in demand for graphics cards from crypto miners will lead to inventory shortages, and they are specifically “targeting Ethereum” this time, according to the chipmaking giant. (Ethereum was specifically targeted), because among the cryptocurrencies that can be mined by GPU, Ethereum can obtain the highest mining yield.
The shortage of chips means that cryptocurrency miners, mainly Ethereum miners, may use gaming laptops to obtain extra computing power. After all, in the current bull market of cryptocurrency, miners will try various means to profit. However, according to Twitter user @I_Leak_VN, Chinese Ethereum miners have bypassed the computing power limit set by Nvidia (later it was revealed that the screenshot posted by @I_Leak_VN was not Ethereum, but another blockchain), — of course , this is not surprising.
It is "interesting" that some mining experts believe that only Nvidia insiders can set the hash rate limit, and others cannot do it, but soon, many industry media including PC Watch, Computer Base and Hardwareluxx pointed out that " "Experts" were wrong, as the hashrate limit can be bypassed directly using the recently released Nvidia Beta driver.
These recent moves by Nvidia and AMD are indeed a surprise, and they also mark that chipmakers have begun to try to distinguish GPUs used for cryptocurrency mining from GPUs used for gaming, although not everyone thinks that this is the case between Nvidia and AMD. A strategy for AMD to follow.
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Ethereum Mining Revenue Soars
Earlier this month, Nvidia won a landmark lawsuit after a lawsuit alleging that Nvidia "falsely reported sales by $1 billion" during the 2017-2018 bull market has officially ended, and a California district court judge finally dismissed the lawsuit. , arguing that the plaintiff cannot explain Nvidia's deliberate behavior in sales performance.
It is reported that the plaintiff in the case is the Ironworkers Local 580 joint fund (an employee benefit plan that invests in Nvidia shares). They accused Nvidia of misleading investors and failing to disclose that its rapid growth in the first half of 2018 was largely due to mining business, while Its share price has since tumbled after disclosing a drop in expected revenue.
But now, the entire cryptocurrency market is different. Since PayPal decided to integrate the cryptocurrency business, retail investors' interest in cryptocurrency has surged, which has also triggered a new round of mining boom. According to a report released in early March, global GPU sales increased significantly in the fourth quarter of 2020, with shipments increasing by 20.5% quarter-on-quarter and 12.4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. According to the report’s author, market analyst Jon Peddie Research (JPR), this is largely due to the rise of the cryptocurrency mining market, in which the Ethereum network in particular has played a considerable role.
In 2021, the network fees earned by Ethereum miners will more than double, even higher than the peak during the "DeFi boom" last summer, and some miners' incomes have even tripled. Some mining experts have found that at this stage, no other cryptocurrency can be mined more profitable than Ethereum.
However, although Ethereum mining revenue has increased significantly, excessive transaction fees have also attracted attention. On February 23, the average transaction fee on the Ethereum network reached $38.21. Many small transactions could not be processed at all, and even many DeFi market activities were affected. Although Ethereum 2.0, which is being upgraded, can solve these problems, it will not be able to quench the near thirst, so Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, decided to propose temporary expansion measures. However, these optimizations have not satisfied miners, as they fear that their income will be greatly reduced.
On March 12, a miner put forward the proposal EIP-3368, proposing to increase the current block reward of the Ethereum network from 2 ETH to 3 ETH, and then gradually reduce it in each block until 8,000,000 blocks (about 2 years) Reducing the reward to 1 ETH per block, this proposal helps mitigate the impact on miners after Ethereum transitioned to a proof-of-stake consensus network.
Jon Peddie Research (JPR) further pointed out that if the Ethereum ecosystem transitions to ETH 2.0, that is, the full implementation of the proof-of-stake consensus, miners' demand for GPUs may completely disappear. Of course, the whole process will take some time. If all goes well, the Ethereum 2.0 network will be upgraded in stages, and the last upgrade will not be until 2022.
Some people believe that after the upgrade of Ethereum is completed in 2022, miners may continue to use GPU mining, because they can transfer to other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, and the new cryptocurrency may also replace Ethereum. But this may not be the case in reality. After all, the so-called "third-generation blockchains" (such as Cardano and Polkadot) have launched proof-of-stake networks, which means that blockchains based on proof-of-work consensus mechanisms will become Fewer and fewer. Not only that, but it’s also unlikely that Ethereum miners would want to switch to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, since those cryptocurrencies’ mining algorithms are completely different from Ethereum’s.
