Gamers, the war might be over soon…
RTX 3060 cards by Nvidia, below msrp? They are now being sold for 270$ per unit on the chinese second hand market. This is due to the fact that many crypto miners are dismissing their gaming-based rigs, maybe realizing that in the current mining scene, you need much more horse power to earn real money and cover the mining farm expenses.
What is happening here is that buyers refused to buy these second-handed, worn-out cards at $340-$450, so prices were reduced to $270, actually below MSRP. Nowadays, miners exploit any sort of hardware, even top-notch laptops, thanks to their powerful 3000 series cards. Of course, crypto mining is a 24/7 intensive tasks and they are still laptops, not built for this kind of wearing task. In fact these “sellers” are starting to get rid of them, selling for about $1000. The price tag might seem appetizing, but you must take into account the condition of the hardware too.
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If you think about it, this is not surprising at all. Crypto mining makes people believe that is possible to become rich, quickly. 5 years ago, it was true, today is not anymore, due to the saturation of the market. Ethereum willing to switch to proof-of-stake, from proof-of-work, is not a case. If you want to understand more, check this awesome video by 3Blue1Brown. Even though he focuses on Bitcoin, the reasoning applies for any proof-of-work based coin.
Anyways, even though mining is causing harm to hardware market, environment and people, remember that this will be over one day, in my opinion sooner than later. Each cryptocurrency can generate a maximum number of coins. As we proceed, the more computational resources are available to the cause, more the mining process becomes complex. This explains why today’s mining farms are insanely bigger than ones back in the days.
