Just yesterday, we saw one of the brightest cryptocurrency mining platforms, with a lot of RGB and 143 graphics cards. It was a device with 70 GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs and 73 GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPUs and was capable of making about $ 900 a day. Bitcoin and Ethereum have risen astronomically in price, as has the mining craze. In addition to the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum skyrocketing, we are also facing a shortage of the latest silicon from Nvidia and AMD.
The astronomical increase in the price of cryptocurrency has ushered in another mining craze, resulting in severe GPU shortages and rising prices
Before the valuation, Bitcoin was stable at around $ 10,000, but in October the price of Bitcoin started to skyrocket and reached $ 20,000 in December. Last week, the price went up to close to $ 35,000, which is absolutely incredible. With the rise in the price of Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies have seen the same happen. Ethereum has seen a 500% increase in value since the beginning of 2020. In early 2020, Ethereum was quoted at around US $ 200 and rose to US $ 400 in August. In November, the upward price trend continued, reaching $ 600, and just last week, it was priced above $ 1,000.
Graphics cards were already very scarce before this increase in the value of cryptocurrencies, but now the demand is higher than ever for high-end graphics cards. The latest silicon from Nvidia and AMD was already short of scalpers capable of selling them at twice the MSRP, but now to launch the cards, you will compete with miners, scalpers, bots and other players. Future cards, like the RTX 3080 Ti, will be even more difficult to obtain now, after the rise in cryptocurrency prices.
In addition to the current shortages, consumers will now be competing with mining companies to obtain the latest hardware from Nvidia and AMD
The profit from mining at the moment is incredible, with each GPU of the current generation having a break-even point of less than 250 days, assuming the prices of these cryptocurrencies remain stable.
Using the price of $ 0.10 per kWh for calculation purposes, the profit of the cryptocurrency is quite large. Tom’s Hardware did the calculations for the profitability of these cards, but one thing to note is that the break-even point is calculated using the MSRP. At the present time, getting a GPU on the MSRP is almost impossible, so the breakeven point for cards purchased above the MSRP will be the purchase price divided by the daily profit.
| Component | $ per day | Energy $ per day | Profit per day | Time to tie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 3090 ($ 1499) | $ 10.80 | $ 0.80 | $ 10.00 | ~ 150 days |
| GeForce RTX 3080 ($ 699) | $ 8.80 | $ 0.60 | $ 8.20 | ~ 85 days |
| GeForce RTX 3070 ($ 499) | $ 5.45 | $ 0.40 | $ 5.05 | ~ 99 days |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ($ 399) | $ 5.40 | $ 0.40 | $ 5.00 | ~ 80 days |
| GeForce RTX 2080 Ti ($ 1199) | $ 5.35 | $ 0.55 | $ 4.80 | ~ 250 days |
| GeForce RTX 2080 Super ($ 699) | $ 3.80 | $ 0.50 | $ 3.30 | ~ 212 days |
| GeForce RTX 2070 Super ($ 499) | $ 3.60 | $ 0.40 | $ 3.20 | ~ 156 days |
| GeForce RTX 2060 Super ($ 399) | $ 3.50 | $ 0.30 | $ 3.20 | ~ 125 days |
| GeForce RTX 2060 ($ 299) | $ 2.85 | $ 0.30 | $ 2.55 | ~ 117 days |
| Radeon RX 6900 XT ($ 999) | $ 8.05 | $ 0.55 | $ 7.50 | ~ 133 days |
| Radeon RX 6800 XT ($ 649) | $ 7.00 | $ 0.50 | $ 6.50 | ~ 100 days |
| Radeon RX 6800 ($ 579) | $ 5.75 | $ 0.40 | $ 5.35 | ~ 108 days |
| Radeon RX 5700 XT ($ 399) | $ 5.00 | $ 0.40 | $ 4.60 | ~ 87 days |
| Radeon RX 5700 ($ 349) | $ 4.80 | $ 0.40 | $ 4.40 | ~ 79 days |
| Radeon RX 5600 XT ($ 279) | $ 3.35 | $ 0.30 | $ 3.05 | ~ 91 days |
Although CPU mining is possible, it is far from ideal. CPU mining has a higher cost involved with very little room for profit. On a mining platform, a person can run multiple GPUs on one CPU, but for CPU mining, that person needs multiple systems to mine with multiple CPUs. The most ideal way to mine is using a single GPU. The most profitable people within the mining encryption scheme are not the miners, but, in fact, those who provide equipment to the miners.
The cryptocurrency mining craze has returned again, so the GPU shortage should continue until there is a drop in cryptocurrency prices. For all players looking to get the latest graphics cards, now you have to compete with miners and bots for upcoming releases. AMD’s lack of CPU seems to be slowly coming to an end, which is the only bright news about this situation at the moment.