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If you were a crypto miner and had a pile of GPUs would they be powered-off right now? Of course not.

shabbatt 4y ago
well it certainly won't be used to mine Ethereum anymore and if this is the trend we will see more "high volume" coins see dropping PoW even further. Those pile of GPU are going to be a write off since prices are dropping and supply issue improves as well.
- mox1 4y ago
  if you are part of a mining pool, its possible they just auto-switched you to mine another coin (Ethereum Classic, LiteCoin, etc)
dcolkitt 4y ago
There's virtually no other ASIC resistant (i.e. can use GPU) PoW coin left to mine. There's the proof-of-work ETH fork, but it only has a market cap less than 2% of than real ETH. So even though they juiced the block rewards, miner rewards are more than 90% lower, which isn't enough to pay for electricity of the previous hash rate.
- qznc 4y ago
  ETH classic hash rate went from 50 to nearly 300 Th/s. https://2miners.com/etc-network-hashrate https://2miners.com/etc-network-hashrate
  - samatman 4y ago
    Reality will set in eventually. It was just the lazy place to point the cards, the pools will get tired of wasting that money pretty fast.
  - staringback 4y ago
    And the price remained the same, so it is now 6x less profitable to mine than before (it was barely profitable before this)
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    Yep. But with that the difficulty is going through the roof and earnings are dropping. Ethereum had A LOT of hash power while ETC isn't really used by anyone so where are the earnings supposed to come from. It's not going to be economically viable because the electricity is a fixed cost, even if some individual miners are trying it out. There is a new PoW fork that was started by miners that want to continue mining. Some of the work could go there assuming it doesn't tank. I personally don't see the utility though, doubt it will be able to attract many users.
- Iolaum 4y ago
  What about Monero? Isn't that PoW and asic resistant? Although irc you need to use a cpu, not a gpu to mine it.
- crowhack 4y ago
  True, there are not many (or any) that will be as profitable but some still exist such as ergo, https://ergoplatform.org/en/get-erg/#Mining https://ergoplatform.org/en/get-erg/#Mining .
ajross 4y ago
It will if you can't mine enough to cover the cost of the electricity required to run it, which is true if you want to mine BTC with it, for example.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Not necessarily. It's true if the person making the decision is getting paid directly from the mining. But perverse incentives abound in the cryptocurrency space. For example, consider Celsius: https://amycastor.com/2022/09/11/crypto-collapse-celsius-voyager-skybridge-the-liabilities-are-real-the-assets-are-fake/ https://amycastor.com/2022/09/11/crypto-collapse-celsius-voy... https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/08/11/crypto-collapse-coinbases-billion-dollar-bloodbath-hodlnaut-goes-down-celsius-voyager-3ac/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/08/11/crypto-colla... As they thrash around in bankruptcy, they have proposed that they will mine their way out of the hole. Will this work? I doubt it. But will it let the CEO stay in charge for a while longer, taking in more investor money and continuing to get paid? Possibly! So actual economic efficiency may not matter.
blihp 4y ago
Turned off is more profitable than running at a loss for miners that need to fund their opex by selling what they mine. It looks like it's already happening. After the merge there were a number of coins that saw huge spikes in hash rate which drove them to absolutely unprofitable levels. A lot of that hash rate has since gone elsewhere (most likely offline) and it looks like many coins are settling at a level in the short term that is breakeven at $0.06-0.08 kWh which many (most?) miners can't be profitable at as that is below their electric rate.
ryeguy_24 4y ago
I think this is potentially the most interesting comment in here. If all of those GPUs just flipped to another cryptocurrency, global energy reduction would be zero.
- mcherm 4y ago
  In the short term, that's true because the GPUs are already purchased. In the long run, people will invest in new cryptocurrency mining rigs very much in proportion to the profitability of running one.
  - ryeguy_24 4y ago
    Also a great comment. :) Good points on both short- and long-term effects.
xiphias2 4y ago
My friend sold most of his GPUs a few weeks ago and you can see it in GPU prices.
josu 4y ago
Yes. At the moment the marginal cost for the average ETH miner is higher than the marginal revenue of any GPU minable chain.
- bredren 4y ago
  Unless you’re stealing power.
  - josu 4y ago
    The "average miner" is not stealing power.

well it certainly won't be used to mine Ethereum anymore and if this is the trend we will see more "high volume" coins see dropping PoW even further. Those pile of GPU are going to be a write off since prices are dropping and supply issue improves as well.

mox1 4y ago
if you are part of a mining pool, its possible they just auto-switched you to mine another coin (Ethereum Classic, LiteCoin, etc)

dcolkitt 4y ago

There's virtually no other ASIC resistant (i.e. can use GPU) PoW coin left to mine. There's the proof-of-work ETH fork, but it only has a market cap less than 2% of than real ETH. So even though they juiced the block rewards, miner rewards are more than 90% lower, which isn't enough to pay for electricity of the previous hash rate.

qznc 4y ago
ETH classic hash rate went from 50 to nearly 300 Th/s. https://2miners.com/etc-network-hashrate https://2miners.com/etc-network-hashrate
- samatman 4y ago
  Reality will set in eventually. It was just the lazy place to point the cards, the pools will get tired of wasting that money pretty fast.
- staringback 4y ago
  And the price remained the same, so it is now 6x less profitable to mine than before (it was barely profitable before this)
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  Yep. But with that the difficulty is going through the roof and earnings are dropping. Ethereum had A LOT of hash power while ETC isn't really used by anyone so where are the earnings supposed to come from. It's not going to be economically viable because the electricity is a fixed cost, even if some individual miners are trying it out. There is a new PoW fork that was started by miners that want to continue mining. Some of the work could go there assuming it doesn't tank. I personally don't see the utility though, doubt it will be able to attract many users.
Iolaum 4y ago
What about Monero? Isn't that PoW and asic resistant? Although irc you need to use a cpu, not a gpu to mine it.
crowhack 4y ago
True, there are not many (or any) that will be as profitable but some still exist such as ergo, https://ergoplatform.org/en/get-erg/#Mining https://ergoplatform.org/en/get-erg/#Mining .

ajross 4y ago

It will if you can't mine enough to cover the cost of the electricity required to run it, which is true if you want to mine BTC with it, for example.

wpietri 4y ago
Not necessarily. It's true if the person making the decision is getting paid directly from the mining. But perverse incentives abound in the cryptocurrency space. For example, consider Celsius: https://amycastor.com/2022/09/11/crypto-collapse-celsius-voyager-skybridge-the-liabilities-are-real-the-assets-are-fake/ https://amycastor.com/2022/09/11/crypto-collapse-celsius-voy... https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/08/11/crypto-collapse-coinbases-billion-dollar-bloodbath-hodlnaut-goes-down-celsius-voyager-3ac/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/08/11/crypto-colla... As they thrash around in bankruptcy, they have proposed that they will mine their way out of the hole. Will this work? I doubt it. But will it let the CEO stay in charge for a while longer, taking in more investor money and continuing to get paid? Possibly! So actual economic efficiency may not matter.

blihp 4y ago

Turned off is more profitable than running at a loss for miners that need to fund their opex by selling what they mine. It looks like it's already happening. After the merge there were a number of coins that saw huge spikes in hash rate which drove them to absolutely unprofitable levels. A lot of that hash rate has since gone elsewhere (most likely offline) and it looks like many coins are settling at a level in the short term that is breakeven at $0.06-0.08 kWh which many (most?) miners can't be profitable at as that is below their electric rate.

ryeguy_24 4y ago

I think this is potentially the most interesting comment in here. If all of those GPUs just flipped to another cryptocurrency, global energy reduction would be zero.

mcherm 4y ago
In the short term, that's true because the GPUs are already purchased. In the long run, people will invest in new cryptocurrency mining rigs very much in proportion to the profitability of running one.
- ryeguy_24 4y ago
  Also a great comment. :) Good points on both short- and long-term effects.

xiphias2 4y ago

My friend sold most of his GPUs a few weeks ago and you can see it in GPU prices.

josu 4y ago

Yes. At the moment the marginal cost for the average ETH miner is higher than the marginal revenue of any GPU minable chain.

bredren 4y ago
Unless you’re stealing power.
- josu 4y ago
  The "average miner" is not stealing power.