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The article doesn't really touch on it, but this seems to be related to the "altcoin" boom of the past month or so, most of which are GPU mineable. The rise in

by ac29 9y ago

The article doesn't really touch on it, but this seems to be related to the "altcoin" boom of the past month or so, most of which are GPU mineable. The rise in Bitcoin prices seems to have made altcoins rise in price in lockstep, for reasons I don't quite understand. Many have even increased in value 10-20x in a matter of a couple months. There are even 8 cryptocoin "unicorns" now, according to https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/. If you are thinking about gambling in crypto-speculation, my advice would be: dont do it with any money you cant afford to lose. There are way too many stories of people losing substantial portions of their life savings buying in at the top of these market booms.

jacquesm 9y ago
> The rise in Bitcoin prices seems to have made altcoins rise in price in lockstep, for reasons I don't quite understand. The Dutch Tulip Mania was not limited to Tulips of a single color.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  Nor did tulips represent 0.025% of the global financial market cap already (~ 80bn / 300 tn) ;) [1] http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ [2] https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-cap-has-doubled-since-qes-start-2015-02-12 https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-cap...
pawadu 9y ago
The rise is because you can trade altcoins with bitcoins. I don't why anyone would want to pay bitcoin for an unknown altcoin but I guess some people are gambling on an altcoin to become successful.
- martin_bech 9y ago
  Or diversifying their cryptoportfolio
  - purrcat259 9y ago
    Cyrptofolio has a ring to it
  - dharma1 9y ago
    I think this is what's going on in the 10-20x altcoin price growth - people are taking portfolio diversification ideas into the crypto space and "investing" in complete cack. When most coins have no substance or inherent utility value or chance of success aside from maybe the top 2, this seems to me like a bad idea. We're seeing billions of new capital pouring into altcoins for reasons that don't seem well founded or sustainable. I am hopeful some sort of mechanisms will evolve to guide the capital flows towards more useful things within the crypto space, right now it feels like a blend of kickstarter/pyramid selling/lottery on a global scale. While the going is good though, I wonder if AMD themselves could boost their balance sheet with a mining side operation :D
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
paganel 9y ago
Can confirm: have friend of a friend who just invested about 2000 euros (or maybe more) in a machine that he installed at home in order to mine for ethereum. His decision was based on the price of ethereum doubling or so in the last month. He's not an IT guy, he paid "consultancy" services to a friend of his who set up the machine for him. We'll see how this will go. From the outside it sounds like a bubble.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  > His decision was based on the price of ethereum doubling or so in the last month. Wouldn't it be a lot less time and effort just to buy the crypto currency and hold it? I mean it seems a bit foolhardy to get into currency speculation (because that's what this is) by investing a large amount of money on hardware they don't have an alternate use for...
  - jacobush 9y ago
    It's easier to avoid taxes that way.
  - floatboth 9y ago
    > they don't have an alternate use for You can always have an alternate use for GPUs. Password recovery, Folding@Home, machine learning stuff (nvidia is more supported for ML, but there are OpenCL packages), extreme overclocking for HWBot points, of course you can sell GPUs to gamers, build gaming PCs with them and sell those to gamers, keep a couple to build a multi-GPU gaming setup for yourself :D
  - idonotknowwhy 9y ago
    Those GPUs would have gone up in value. I bought a bunch of RX580's last week, and can sell them second hand for more than I paid. Same thing happened when I was mining in 2013. Sold my hardware for a profit after I'd mined profitably.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    If ETH drops by more than half his machine is still profitable; on the other hand buying it now is a bit risky if it collapses back. ETH was 8$ in Jan now it's almost 250$.

by ac29 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

> The rise in Bitcoin prices seems to have made altcoins rise in price in lockstep, for reasons I don't quite understand. The Dutch Tulip Mania was not limited to Tulips of a single color.

dmichulke 9y ago
Nor did tulips represent 0.025% of the global financial market cap already (~ 80bn / 300 tn) ;) [1] http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ [2] https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-cap-has-doubled-since-qes-start-2015-02-12 https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-cap...

pawadu 9y ago

The rise is because you can trade altcoins with bitcoins. I don't why anyone would want to pay bitcoin for an unknown altcoin but I guess some people are gambling on an altcoin to become successful.

martin_bech 9y ago
Or diversifying their cryptoportfolio
- purrcat259 9y ago
  Cyrptofolio has a ring to it
- dharma1 9y ago
  I think this is what's going on in the 10-20x altcoin price growth - people are taking portfolio diversification ideas into the crypto space and "investing" in complete cack. When most coins have no substance or inherent utility value or chance of success aside from maybe the top 2, this seems to me like a bad idea. We're seeing billions of new capital pouring into altcoins for reasons that don't seem well founded or sustainable. I am hopeful some sort of mechanisms will evolve to guide the capital flows towards more useful things within the crypto space, right now it feels like a blend of kickstarter/pyramid selling/lottery on a global scale. While the going is good though, I wonder if AMD themselves could boost their balance sheet with a mining side operation :D

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

paganel 9y ago

Can confirm: have friend of a friend who just invested about 2000 euros (or maybe more) in a machine that he installed at home in order to mine for ethereum. His decision was based on the price of ethereum doubling or so in the last month. He's not an IT guy, he paid "consultancy" services to a friend of his who set up the machine for him. We'll see how this will go. From the outside it sounds like a bubble.

kogepathic 9y ago
> His decision was based on the price of ethereum doubling or so in the last month. Wouldn't it be a lot less time and effort just to buy the crypto currency and hold it? I mean it seems a bit foolhardy to get into currency speculation (because that's what this is) by investing a large amount of money on hardware they don't have an alternate use for...
- jacobush 9y ago
  It's easier to avoid taxes that way.
- floatboth 9y ago
  > they don't have an alternate use for You can always have an alternate use for GPUs. Password recovery, Folding@Home, machine learning stuff (nvidia is more supported for ML, but there are OpenCL packages), extreme overclocking for HWBot points, of course you can sell GPUs to gamers, build gaming PCs with them and sell those to gamers, keep a couple to build a multi-GPU gaming setup for yourself :D
- idonotknowwhy 9y ago
  Those GPUs would have gone up in value. I bought a bunch of RX580's last week, and can sell them second hand for more than I paid. Same thing happened when I was mining in 2013. Sold my hardware for a profit after I'd mined profitably.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  If ETH drops by more than half his machine is still profitable; on the other hand buying it now is a bit risky if it collapses back. ETH was 8$ in Jan now it's almost 250$.