Can you copy the bottom of the graphics card now?

Original author: 0x49

A year ago, ETH was on a tear and demand for graphics cards was soaring. At the peak, the original price to buy a new graphics card is extravagant hope, want to have a graphics card can only go to the secondary market to accept a super premium. But that has not stopped miners from craving the wealth effect. Video cards are in short supply, and even game books are being wiped out.

The biggest beneficiary of rising demand for graphics cards is, of course, card makers. The profits of Nvidia, the world's largest graphics card company, have long been fully tied to crypto mining. Although Nvidia has repeatedly tried to reduce the impact of mining on the graphics card market, the fact is that the graphics card market has been affected by crypto assets and formed a certain cycle. As ETH's price and market capitalization continue to grow, so does its influence on the graphics card market. Therefore, its price also affects the graphics card market.

Recently, as ETH prices fell sharply, ETH mining power also recorded its biggest weekly decline in nearly a year, with the average power falling back to December last year. At the same time, the arrival of ETH 2.0 is expected to affect the trend of the graphics card market. Can I copy the video card now? BlockBeats attempts to explore the past and future of the graphics card market.

ETH Network computing power and price (2017.07-2022.07), Photo source: OKLink

Graphics card makers love and hate crypto mining

For graphic card miners, the main concerns are ETH network conditions (including difficulty, average computing power level), ETH price, graphics card price, graphics card computing power, and other factors. For gamers and ordinary users, the main concern is the price and performance of the graphics card.

In terms of usage, graphics card miners can afford to pay a higher premium for graphics cards than ordinary users. Take the GTX 1060 6G, Nvidia's "dessert-grade" graphics card, which launched in 2016 and is officially priced at 1,999 yuan for a non-public version. But during the ETH mining boom, the card was priced at over 3,000 yuan for a long time, surpassing the $3,499 price of Nvidia's subflagship graphics card, the GTX 1070Ti. And when the mining disaster hit, the market was flooded with triple-digit GTX 1060s.

According to Steam's latest June 2022 Hardware report, the GTX 1060 remains the most-used graphics card on the platform with 132 million active users for the month, accounting for 7.02% of platform users.

Steam June 2022 Hardware and Software Survey, photo source: Steam

The boom in crypto mining can affect not only the prices of graphics cards in the secondary market, but also the pricing systems of companies as strong as Nvidia.

For example, in September 2020, Nvidia released its "GeForce RTX 30 Series" graphics cards based on ampere-based architecture. The official price of the RTX 3070 is 40% of the RTX 2080 Ti, with similar performance to the previous flagship. And the RTX 3080 performance on the basis of the RTX 2080 Ti improved by 40%, while the price is only 55% of the latter.

This isn't about Nvidia trying to be "charitable." It's about crypto mining breaking down business strategies and pricing mechanisms. On "312" in 2020, anyone who has been involved in cryptocurrency will remember that the crypto market crashed and burned, with ETH reaching $80 at one point. This caused miners to sell their graphics cards at no cost and manufacturers to sell new ones.

Graphics cycle

Accompanying this crypto bull market was the release of Nvidia's 30-series graphics cards in 2020. Clearly, video cards have gone through their own cycles. The top graphics card on the market at the time was not only accepted by gamers, but also gave miners a new tool.

As a result, the price of graphics cards in the secondary market took off dramatically. The epidemic caused insufficient supply and skyrocketing demand, and graphics cards became hard currency.

We have increased ETH netwide computing power from 234 TH/s to a maximum of 1266 TH/s based on the official launch date of Nvidia RTX 3080, September 17, 2020.

What is the concept of 1032 TH/s added? If the full conversion is 3080 (at 100 MH/s), then the equivalent of an additional 10.32 million graphics cards for ETH mining is added to the network.

But as the bull market ended, the rush for premium prices was reversed by the mining disaster. In the second quarter of 2022, the price of graphics cards finally fell below their original price, amid a more than 30% plunge in Ethereum's networkwide computing power. If converted into a graphics card, equivalent to 3.8 million 3080 graphics card shutdown, into the market.

In hindsight, computing power slump or a large number of video card shutdown reaction in the video card market is slow to sell. As early as April 15, JD.com launched a campaign to guarantee 618,180 days of graphics card replacement without repair, which is unprecedented in strength. According to incomplete media statistics, only 900 copies of the 10GB version of the 3080 were sold on JD.com during the 618 period. In addition to China, the U.S. market has also been slow to sell graphics cards, and Asus announced in late March that it would cut the price of its Series 30 graphics cards by 25% starting April 1.

There is another important reason for the slow sales of the 30 series graphics cards, which are already in the end of their product life. The latest news shows that 40 series of graphics cards will be available as soon as 2022 Q4. But perhaps sales expectations for the new graphics cards have fallen, judging by Nvidia and AMD both cutting orders from TSMC.

Will the 30 series be the last mine card?

From all sources, perhaps the 30 series of graphics cards will be the most number of mining cards.

The ETH merger is expected to happen in September, and when it is completed, ETH's consensus mechanism will shift from PoW to PoS, which will no longer require graphics cards for mining. However, some miners believe that PoW mining will continue for some time after the merger is completed, or that ETH will be in PoW+PoS coexistence mode, or that miners are ready to fork ETH, so graphics mining will continue for some time.

According to media sources, Nvidia expects to release only one flagship 40-series graphics card this year. Even if ETH PoW mining continues, there will probably not be a large number of Series 40 graphics cards to participate in considering cost performance and cycle back.

Looking at the current crypto market, some such as distributed rendering projects, ETC may be able to handle a small number of graphics cards, but it is clear that no single crypto asset can handle such a large number of graphics cards.

With such a large base of computing power and miners, there are already forces at work trying to forge a fork. But the lack of support of the masses, time precipitation, bull and bear cycle, obviously this process will be a chicken feather.

So can you start now? Buying a cheap enough minecard or 40 series graphics card would be a better choice.

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