Friday, January 21st 2022
Bitcoin Drops Below the $40,000-mark, Raises Hopes of Graphics Card Availability
The most popular cryptocurrency by market-cap, Bitcoin, has dropped in value to below the USD $40,000-mark, to $38,429 as of this writing. This amounts to a whopping 43% drop in value from its November 2021 peak of roughly $67,600. Ethereum has also seen an 8% fall over the past 24 hours, as has the value of several other cryptocurrencies. While we won't get into the nuts and bolts of Bitcoin volatility or hand out any financial advice, this could have an impact on graphics card availability owing to a multitude of reasons.
As of this writing, we see the GeForce RTX 3080 commanding a scalper price of roughly $1,500 (brand new), for the LHR variant (lower crypto-mining performance), while non-LHR cards that are used, start around $1,900. If the fall in cryptocurrencies continues, we could see increased availability of used graphics cards from crypto miners, as gamers would be willing to buy a used RTX 30-series or RX 6000 series graphics card that's still within its warranty period (of 2 years).
Sales of used cards by miners will apply pressure on scalpers hording new cards to cut prices, more so as they'd be trying to sell newer batches of RTX 30-series cards that are LHR. Add to all this, the next-generation crypto-mining ASICs are on the anvil, including Bitmain's Antminer S19 XP, and Intel's "Bonanza Mine" ASIC that the company plans to unveil next month. The arrival of ASIC miners usually triggers an increase in the mining difficulty algorithm, which should worsen the performance/Dollar of GPUs in mining applications. The compound effect of all these, we predict, could briefly improve graphics card availability in 1H-2022. A continued fall in the value of cryptocurrencies will only accelerate this.
Sources:
Google Finance, CNBC
As of this writing, we see the GeForce RTX 3080 commanding a scalper price of roughly $1,500 (brand new), for the LHR variant (lower crypto-mining performance), while non-LHR cards that are used, start around $1,900. If the fall in cryptocurrencies continues, we could see increased availability of used graphics cards from crypto miners, as gamers would be willing to buy a used RTX 30-series or RX 6000 series graphics card that's still within its warranty period (of 2 years).
110 Comments on Bitcoin Drops Below the $40,000-mark, Raises Hopes of Graphics Card Availability
Big swings up and down like this are the nature of cryptocurrency though. I'm still mining and will continue to do so at least until I'm not making profit - and for that to happen bitcoin will need to fall below about $16000 and stay there, dragging ETH down proportionally to around $900. After mining at $900 for a month or two if there's no upturn that is when I plan to stop mining and sell off.
With inflation at 7% and BTC crashing, can we at least dispel the myth that BTC is an inflation hedge? Its clear that the cryptocoin community doesn't give a damn about inflation at all.
In 2020, when inflation pulled back to 2% due to the pandemic, BTC grew dramatically. If anything, BTC is inversely related to CPI / inflation. At least over the last 2 years.
To be fair, if I had a modern desktop PC I could put GPUs in and earn free money I would too. You'd be a fool to not to.
-----------
Look at any asset class that's actually an inflation hedge.
Brent crude oil is a good example. It went down during the lockdowns as people consumed less gasoline, and it goes up during the reopening of the economy.
Now look at Bitcoin's price, or crypto in general. Bitcoin went UP during the lockdowns, as a bunch of armchair enthusiasts had nothing better to do than buy BTC with their savings. And as the economy reopens, BTC seems to go back down as people start spending their money on useful things again (you know, like gasoline)
There's a few things happening across the world, which IMO are absurd but won't change in our lifetimes.
The amount of time we're spending to make our lives "better" or secure is ever increasing ~ that's true for the vast majority of people out there. You could very well say life is cheaper than ever. That's not even a philosophical take on things it's literally that bad.
Consumerism ~ more people are being led to believe they "need" things which in reality they can easily live without. Now it isn't totally the fault of corporations since most adults should be able to resist this itch but then there's this thing called (big) tech which has made it hard to take your mind of such things which in the past we could easily ignore. The cheap credit lines are just a way to ensure the bean counters keep running!
With natural resources being exploited at the rate they are & ever increasing poverty across most places across the globe, plus concentration of wealth at the top, the only way normal people feel they can get out of this never ending cycle of 24*7*365 work/slavery is by becoming rich & quickly! Except they're just perpetuating the cycle.
Do you understand what I'm getting at? The only way to stop the wheel, or break it, is to make all the monies in the world worth less than humans lives ~ now how do we achieve that is the priceless answer!There's probably already a tipping point (or bottom) beyond which BTC won't crash under like it did in the past. Armchair hobbyists/enthusiasts/investors exiting wont make a difference anymore!
ASICs will be fully worthless after a crash. GPUs are supported by a bigger market.
March 2019 I think it was about $4000 and early 2020 was about 8-9k
40k is still quite a bit above that.
The Nasdaq does not keep track of the cryptocoin market are a whole and their data is not all-encompassing. Stockmarket data, sure, cryptocoin.
I can cite at least 15 more if you wish to continue to insult me, enjoy your illusions while they last.
anyways back to sleep for me, this thread is starting to bore me immensely.
Unless Bitcoin value somehow ties to other coins that can be mined on GPUs, they will remain at unobtainium prices for the average consumer.
WON'T BE PLAYING SQUARE ENIX OR UBISOFT GAMES IN THE FUTURE DUE TO THEIR USE/ACCEPTANCE OF NFT'S.
MY MONEY WILL BE GOING TO INDIE GAME DEVELOPERS, NON-NFT AND NON-CRYPTO GAME COMPANIES.
JOIN ME, HAVE RESPECT FOR YOURSELF, REMEMBER THE JOY OF GAMING FOR GAMING'S SAKE.
I AGREE... but not all ubisoft games are using NFTs, AKA Tom CLancys : The division 1 & 2 Dev/Creative Director, has said we are not using NFTs and or do not plan to use / have NFTs