Official Mining Thread

[Android1]

Ethereum Switches to Proof of Stake, GPU Mining Is Dead

Good news for gamers, or at least the ones who didn’t mine Ethereum with their graphics cards.

NVIDIA Ada and AMD RDNA3 will not sell to Ethereum miners. In a dramatic move, the creators of Ethereum have switched over the popular crypto-currency's algorithm from proof-of-work, to proof-of-stake, which means miners will no longer spend GPU resources in competing to find the same blocks. This effectively ends GPU-accelerated mining as Ethereum mining was the number-1 consumer of high-end GPUs through 2021. The switch-over happened as the total terminal difficulty surpassed 58,750,000,000T, with the last block having been found. With this move, global electricity consumption is expected to reduce by 0.2% (that's enough to power the world's top 5 cities).

The impact of this move on GPU sales to crypto-currency miners is expected to be profound. GPUs are no longer an economical way to mine Bitcoin, ASICs are; and Ethereum mining constituted the bulk of activity from GPU-accelerated mining farms. This doesn't mean there aren't other crypto-currencies that rely on GPU-accelerated proof-of-work blockchain compute; but Ethereum had the highest market-cap among such currencies. Gamers have reason to rejoice, as NVIDIA and AMD now have to sell high-end GPUs squarely on merits of gaming performance, power-draw, and graphics card pricing.

Sources: techPowerUp!, The Verge, Vitalik Buterin (Twitter)

[MaxSt]

ETH down 5% despite smooth Ethereum Merge

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/eth-trading-ethereum-merge-142242016.html

Lauded by both supporters and critics as crypto’s most ambitious software upgrade, the change shifted how Ethereum processes transactions — from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake — a first in the world of blockchains.

The upgrade caused Ethereum's energy consumption to plummet, with proponents saying the move also helps the blockchain to become a faster, cheaper and more useful financial layer of the internet.

But within the hour before the Merge, Ethereum’s native token slipped below $1,600 per coin and was trading relatively unchanged at $1,492 per coin by Thursday 11 a.m., down more than 5%.

The ether to bitcoin (ETH-BTC) ratio has also plummeted 5% following the Merge.

The upgrade's final stage took about 12 minutes followed by another 12-15 minutes for Ethereum’s core developer team to gauge the transition's "finality" with as many as 41,000 people watching during a live Merge “viewing party."

By eliminating mining, the Ethereum Foundation and other analysts projected the protocol's energy consumption — which had required as much power as a small country — would drop by 99.95%. Justin Drake, an Ethereum researcher said just before the upgrade that the Merge “will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%."

[bill dennison]

Good news for gamers, or at least the ones who didn’t mine Ethereum with their graphics cards.

NVIDIA Ada and AMD RDNA3 will not sell to Ethereum miners. In a dramatic move, the creators of Ethereum have switched over the popular crypto-currency's algorithm from proof-of-work, to proof-of-stake, which means miners will no longer spend GPU resources in competing to find the same blocks. This effectively ends GPU-accelerated mining as Ethereum mining was the number-1 consumer of high-end GPUs through 2021. The switch-over happened as the total terminal difficulty surpassed 58,750,000,000T, with the last block having been found. With this move, global electricity consumption is expected to reduce by 0.2% (that's enough to power the world's top 5 cities).

The impact of this move on GPU sales to crypto-currency miners is expected to be profound. GPUs are no longer an economical way to mine Bitcoin, ASICs are; and Ethereum mining constituted the bulk of activity from GPU-accelerated mining farms. This doesn't mean there aren't other crypto-currencies that rely on GPU-accelerated proof-of-work blockchain compute; but Ethereum had the highest market-cap among such currencies. Gamers have reason to rejoice, as NVIDIA and AMD now have to sell high-end GPUs squarely on merits of gaming performance, power-draw, and graphics card pricing.

Sources: techPowerUp!, The Verge, Vitalik Buterin (Twitter)

ding dong ... ding dong

[Android1]

Yep! The witch is dead.

[bill dennison]

Yep! The witch is dead.

i bet the jacket has people making code for a new GPU mining coin that will work well on those 4000's

[Android1]

i bet the jacket has people making code for a new GPU mining coin that will work well on those 4000's

What’s "the jacket"?

[bill dennison]

What’s "the jacket"?

Jensen Huang

[acroig]

ding dong ... ding dong

Yep! The witch is dead.

You're both lucky Curio's not around anymore. Bans for the two of you!

[Android1]

Jensen Huang

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/4539/cfFg73.jpg

That makes so much sense! And no, it wouldn’t surprise me if he were doing that.

[Leprechaun]

Well with eth out mining profits are seriously down. It's not even worth spec mining as it hardly covers electricity. Gonna mine ergo for a few weeks to see if many people leave to lower the hashrate.

[bill dennison]

You're both lucky Curio's not around anymore. Bans for the two of you!

this thread should have always been down in Distributed Computing

it more like folding than anything to do with Graphics Cards and 3D Technologies

but i wasn't going to tell him

[KAC]

Seems this game is over. What can I mine on Nicehash?

[bill dennison]

Seems this game is over. What can I mine on Nicehash?

haven't had any nice hash since the 70's

[KAC]

Got a spare 3070 lying around

[acroig]

this thread should have always been down in Distributed Computing

I like that idea, thanks.

[Riptide]

The ice age for GPU mining has come as per predictions.

ETC, ERG, RVN all completely swamped. It's not even close to being worth it at this point.

The deluge of used GPUs is about to flood ebay if it hasn't already. Expect another big price drop on those cards above and beyond what we've already seen.

Will 3080 cards go for $200 used? Stay tuned!

As for me I'm test mining ETC and ERG. Once I have some clocks and settings dialed in I'm idling my GPUs. No sense in doing otherwise at this point in time. I suspect it will be months at a minimum before enough people quit for difficulty to plummet. Possibly we could be looking at well into next year. Turning off isn't going to cut it - enough people need to sell their equipment and completely fold up so they can't just flip it back on again.

OTOH I do have a couple CPUs that I'm mining with and am continuing to do so. They don't make much though.

[Leprechaun]

The ergo mining isn't making electric costs at the moment even for me I don't think. Spec mining is pointless as I could use that electric cost to buy said coin anyways. I'll see what happens a month from now and decide.

Congrats ETH you are now fully.centralized. 2 entities own 40% of eth control. We humans found a way to take the old crap system of finance where the government controls us and just make it digital.

I'm slowly becoming a BTC maxipad.

[Riptide]

Paranoia lead by media smear campaigns over 0.2% world electrical consumption helped lead to this btw.

If people really cared about the original intent of digital currency then something like Monero would be number one in market cap. I think it's current and long held position in the charts is proof enough of where people have their priorities when it comes right down to it.

[Leprechaun]

You're correct. Privacy coins ftw! I knew the govt would pull a tornado cash on us it's the only reason I never dealt with them. Otherwise USA will get left in the dust and be behind on tech, then to use bully measures, tactics, and bribes to get all the tech leaders back

[xCLAVEx]

Good news for gamers, or at least the ones who didn’t mine Ethereum with their graphics cards.

NVIDIA Ada and AMD RDNA3 will not sell to Ethereum miners. In a dramatic move, the creators of Ethereum have switched over the popular crypto-currency's algorithm from proof-of-work, to proof-of-stake, which means miners will no longer spend GPU resources in competing to find the same blocks. This effectively ends GPU-accelerated mining as Ethereum mining was the number-1 consumer of high-end GPUs through 2021. The switch-over happened as the total terminal difficulty surpassed 58,750,000,000T, with the last block having been found. With this move, global electricity consumption is expected to reduce by 0.2% (that's enough to power the world's top 5 cities).

The impact of this move on GPU sales to crypto-currency miners is expected to be profound. GPUs are no longer an economical way to mine Bitcoin, ASICs are; and Ethereum mining constituted the bulk of activity from GPU-accelerated mining farms. This doesn't mean there aren't other crypto-currencies that rely on GPU-accelerated proof-of-work blockchain compute; but Ethereum had the highest market-cap among such currencies. Gamers have reason to rejoice, as NVIDIA and AMD now have to sell high-end GPUs squarely on merits of gaming performance, power-draw, and graphics card pricing.

Sources: techPowerUp!, The Verge, Vitalik Buterin (Twitter)

Even though I'm not planning on buying a new card for quite awhile, this is good news for the future. Now we only have to compete with other gamers for the cards, as it should have always been.

[Leprechaun]

Can't wait to see how Nvidia prices 4000 series. $3000 then cry and wonder why nobody is buying them.

I stand corrected, two eth validators control 46.19% of supply. The government loves this. I do believe people prefer slavery over freedom.

[NIGELG]

You're both lucky Curio's not around anymore. Bans for the two of you!

Dictators don't like criticism of themselves or things they like.

[acroig]

Ouch!

[Lazy8s]

Any reason to post here other than derail the thread and attack the mining community? (acroig edit: nope, no other reason)

[acroig]

Guys! WTF? Must we behave like children?

Nigel: don't troll here man, it's not your thing, we get that;

Riptide: No need to call people that don't mine entitled.

Now, play nice you two.

[Lazy8s]

You’re all set Riptide. I would have said the same thing in your shoes.

[Nunz]

I think debate about the merits of mining is fine, but I also believe there should be a thread for miners to be able to talk about mining without having to constantly deal with people questioning the validity or purpose behind it.

I think we can make a separate thread for debate regarding mining, and if Nigel and others want to spar in there, then that's fine.

The EVGA thread, as I said earlier, was also not a place for that discussion.

[Riptide]

Having been through two cycles of massive bitcoin price action and the resulting surge in mining demand it's just the same old talking points every time. I doubt even Nigel would want a debate thread. What positive outcome or new thing could come of it?

Anyhow, my few remaining GPUs are idling and will probably stay that way until we get into cold weather and I can use them to help heat the house and offset the power cost. I personally don't expect any profitability to GPU mining beyond pennies per day to come back for months minimum and most likely years.

I have a couple CPUs mining XMR on MoneroOcean and it's making a whopping $0.80 per day USD. I continue with it mainly because I enjoy the hobby and choose to support the Monero network.

You’re all set Riptide. I would have said the same thing in your shoes.

Much appreciated.

[NIGELG]

Guys! WTF? Must we behave like children?

Nigel: don't troll here man, it's not your thing, we get that;

Riptide: No need to call people that don't mine entitled.

Now, play nice you two.

Okay, I payed $806.85 US dollars for a 3070 that had an MRSP of $499 in the height of the mining craze. And the price went even higher after that.

So that's why I'm very peeved at that whole mining scene but I will withdraw from this thread having said my piece enough times.

[acroig]

Okay, I payed $806.85 US dollars for a 3070 that had an MRSP of $499 in the height of the mining craze. And the price went even higher after that.

So that's why I'm very peeved at that whole mining scene but I will withdraw from this thread having said my piece enough times.

Thanks. Looking forward to new cards coming out soon.

[Riptide]

Got some people in serious denial out there it seems on reddit and elsewhere thinking it'll be just a few weeks before they can hop back in and make consistent profits.

People going to be doing nothing but algo switching and playing whack a mole for the next several months minimum and possibly well into next year IMO. Zero sense to be running a GPU miner right now with typical power costs but some people stubbornly persist in doing it anyway. Seems real dumb but w/e it's their hardware and money.

Checked WTM this morning after a few days and really no change. At 0.10 kw/hr it's a loss. Not even making pennies. Losing pennies. lol

[Leprechaun]

Yep, every single coin is in the negatives if you're a miner.
I have one rig going because it's at a location where power is free for me. Otherwise rigs are off.

[Lazy8s]

If FOMO were a physical disease, my mining buddy would be hospitalized right now. I hope he doesn’t lose too much.

[Riptide]

Well at this point what are you going to put money in that isn't losing value?

Metals down. Equities slaughtered. Crypto way down from the highs.

Cash losing 8%.

I mean there is literally almost nothing. The only thing I've not lost money on is the couple I-Bonds I own with the treasury. That's it. And they aren't making anything they're just keeping up with inflation.

[Nunz]

Real estate seems pretty good still, but that's a lot bigger of an investment.

There are always lulls. We're in for a decent sized one I think. I feel bad for anyone planning to retire in the next 4-5 years..

[Riptide]

Depending on the market real estate is no sure bet either. With high rates prices tend to head down.

So, a buy opportunity if you have cash perhaps. Same can be said for equities and anything else crashing right now.

I'm out of cash at this point I blew my wad on AMD at 70 and thought I was getting a "deal". Now I have egg on my face.

[Lazy8s]

I think a lot of folks are regretting making what they thought (can you blame them?) were good deals. They sure seemed good at the time.

All I know right now is my 401k is taking some really uncomfortable hits. I need a safer place for that money.

[Leprechaun]

Housing will crash. Demand is and will be way down with higher rates. Most people won't qualify for a loan.
This is when the Blackrocks of the world swoop in and buy all the houses in your neighborhood

[Riptide]

Cash buyers are fine. Here in NV we have a lot of cash rich Californians coming in and driving prices up. So those people are completely unaffected. The locals have been and will continue to be upset about it but welcome to the free market chief. Right now cash is king and if you don't have it and can't afford a 6% mortgage then you're screwed.

Momma said there'd be days like this.

Back OT, I have a couple 3070 GPUs left currently idling and will be putting my 5950x in the rig to CPU mine with. 3070s might get back up and running when the cold weather hits and I can offset heating in the house. Debating whether I want to keep the 3070s in the rack on 1x risers or plug them direct into the motherboard slots.

[Lazy8s]

Cash buyers are fine. Here in NV we have a lot of cash rich Californians coming in and driving prices up. So those people are completely unaffected. The locals have been and will continue to be upset about it but welcome to the free market chief. Right now cash is king and if you don't have it and can't afford a 6% mortgage then you're screwed.

Momma said there'd be days like this.

Back OT, I have a couple 3070 GPUs left currently idling and will be putting my 5950x in the rig to CPU mine with. 3070s might get back up and running when the cold weather hits and I can offset heating in the house. Debating whether I want to keep the 3070s in the rack on 1x risers or plug them direct into the motherboard slots.

Yeah she did