Bitcoin mania is hurting PC gamers by pushing up GPU prices
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin have soared in value over the past year, thanks to continued interest from a range of investors. As the price of these cryptocurrencies has increased, graphics cards have also seen big price increases thanks to retail stock shortages. A range of mid- or high-end graphics cards from AMD or Nvidia are in short supply, mostly due to cryptocurrency miners buying them in bulk to build machines to mine bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies.
Polygon reports that pricing for Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070 should be around $380 (depending on the model), but that some cards are now being sold for more than $700 due to the stock shortages – an increase of more than 80 percent. Cryptocurrency miners use stacks of graphics cards to solve the mathematical problems need to authenticate payments on the network and create new bitcoin. There’s only a finite number of bitcoins available, and because of the way the network is designed, each new bitcoin takes more power to mine. This has led to increased demand for more powerful graphics cards to tackle multiple cryptocurrencies.
Source and more: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949550/bitcoin-graphics-cards-pc-prices-surge
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin have soared in value over the past year, thanks to continued interest from a range of investors. As the price of these cryptocurrencies has increased, graphics cards have also seen big price increases thanks to retail stock shortages. A range of mid- or high-end graphics cards from AMD or Nvidia are in short supply, mostly due to cryptocurrency miners buying them in bulk to build machines to mine bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies.
Polygon reports that pricing for Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070 should be around $380 (depending on the model), but that some cards are now being sold for more than $700 due to the stock shortages – an increase of more than 80 percent. Cryptocurrency miners use stacks of graphics cards to solve the mathematical problems need to authenticate payments on the network and create new bitcoin. There’s only a finite number of bitcoins available, and because of the way the network is designed, each new bitcoin takes more power to mine. This has led to increased demand for more powerful graphics cards to tackle multiple cryptocurrencies.
Source and more: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949550/bitcoin-graphics-cards-pc-prices-surge
