Cryptocurrencies lead to bottleneck in graphics card market

 In recent months, the rates of the ethereum and bitcoin cryptocurrencies have been steadily increasing. Currently, the price of bitcoin is PLN 209,000, and more people start investing in cryptocurrencies. As a result, the prices of graphics cards are also rising, especially those of the higher-end ones, which make mining cryptocurrencies the most effective. So there is a shortage of graphics cards on the market, and the price of those that are still available has increased by at least several dozen percent in a few months. According to Marcin Wituś, CEO of Geco.one platform, there is a risk that the prices of graphics cards will increase all the time because the demand is really very high. 

“Every transaction in the blockchain network, both bitcoin, and ethereum must be confirmed, and this is the task of graphics cards that perform complex calculations on an ongoing basis. Until 2017, basically, any computer could mine cryptocurrency and make money on it. Currently, however, the computing power necessary to mine cryptocurrency is so large that an ordinary desktop computer, even with the best graphics card, cannot cope. Very large farms, the so-called cryptocurrency farms have enormous computing powers,” Marcin Wituś said.

At the end of 2020, there were approximately 18.5 million bitcoins in circulation. In addition to those produced by the Genesis block, each was created thanks to miners, i.e. people involved in mining cryptocurrencies. Along with the interest in cryptocurrencies, the required computing power grows. And to mine competitively, miners now need to invest in computer hardware with powerful GPUs or specialized ASICs. The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has already exceeded the level of $2 trillion, thus the cryptocurrency market is already larger than the American banking system. Over 52 percent of cryptocurrency capitalization corresponds to bitcoin.

(Newseria)