Cheap graphics cards could once again be exposed to inflation risk, as popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin began rapidly rising in value again this weekend, following the broader crypto market crash there a few weeks ago.
As reported by Coindesk (opens in a new tab), Bitcoin and Ethereum saw their first gain this weekend since the June stock market crash, with Bitcoin rising 5% (though it's worth remembering that said drop has erased 34% of its value) and Ethereum hits a massive 20% surge over the same period.
While this is great news for anyone still holding investments in any of the recovering coins, this rally potentially means we could see GPU prices start to skyrocket if crypto mining becomes viable again. Bitcoin is less of an issue in the sense that it's not really possible to mine the currency effectively with a consumer graphics card, but since it's the most valuable and most established cryptocurrency on the market, its health generally has a ripple effect with other currencies.
Ethereum, on the other hand, is a potential threat to the relatively affordable period that we have reached with the GPU market. Despite promises to move to the same "proof of stake" validation used by Bitcoin (a system that uses randomly selected miners to validate transactions), the coin still uses "proof of work" (a validation method competitive that can be exploited by minors).
GPU Shortage 2: Electric Boogaloo
A simpler way to think of it is that Proof of Work allows miners around the world to try to be the first to solve a 'math puzzle', and whoever is the first to do so gets to update the blockchain and is rewarded with a small percentage. of crypto. People with access to hardware with a higher hash rate (a measure of the computations that can be performed per second) are more likely to solve the puzzle first.
These "puzzles" can be solved on traditional graphics cards, unlike specialized mining devices known as ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) miners, though ASICs tend to provide much better hash mining rates, for a price. . As such, ASIC miners have generally only been used with Bitcoin since it went proof-of-stake, but while Ethereum can still be mined efficiently on consumer graphics cards, PC gamers aren't out of the woods just yet.
There is no guarantee that history will repeat itself, but with the price of popular graphics cards leveling off after two turbulent years, low prices could tempt miners to return to Ethereum mining, while GPU prices are low. and the coin is still viable to mine. on them, and that doesn't even include the many other smaller coins that still use proof-of-work validation.
This is particularly disheartening as AMD's RDNA3 cards and Nvidia's Lovelace series are both slated to release later this year, which could have gamers once again rushing to buy a shiny new RTX 4080 before they hit the market. scalpers and miners collect them en masse. In the words of Taylor Swift: I think I've seen this movie before and I didn't like the ending.
Should you buy now or wait for the next generation?
12-18 months ago, when I was reporting on the rising cost of recently released GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, prices had risen to almost 3x the MSRP for some of the most popular next-gen offerings from AMD and Nvidia, which made the cards impossible to find in stock and extremely unaffordable for most. Some of the blame has been put on crypto miners, from small-scale operations to massive factory farms, as they had the purchasing power to get all the available stock from online stores using bots.
If you need an idea of how serious this situation is, it was revealed a few weeks ago that Ethereum miners have spent €15 billion on GPUs over the last two years, and that doesn't even include the other parts needed to build a mining rig. : Those are just graphics cards.
While all of this is scary for PC gamers, and it certainly helps to be prepared, remember that it's not guaranteed. We're seeing signs that history has the potential to repeat itself, but that doesn't mean it will, and a lot can happen between now and the release of next-gen graphics cards. If ETH were to eventually go Proof-of-Stake, one of the biggest problems would be solved early on, for example.
If you have your heart set on buying an RTX 4060 at launch, keep an eye on current market prices, but for those with the cash now, don't overlook the potential of current-gen cards. There are plenty of deals available now on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs, and many current-gen deals will remain a fantastic buy for a few years to come and at least we get to enjoy some discounted graphics cards above all potential. hell breaks lose again.
Today's best graphics card deals
Via Tom's Hardware(Opens in a new tab)