The last few years have marked themselves with a rapid increase in demand and prices for hi-end video cards. The demand is due to the growth of the cryptocurrency rate - both Bitcoin and altcoins. For mining some of them need powerful graphics cards. After the rate of kryptomonet rose sharply, the prices for video cards simply took off, and the graphics cards themselves disappeared from sale - they simply did not disappear in many stores.
Despite the depreciation of the course at the beginning of this year, the cost of video cards was in no hurry to decline. In February, for example, the cost of hi-end models like the Radeon RX 570 and RX 580 doubled compared to the spring of 2017. But now, it seems, the rise in card prices has
come to an end and the reverse process has begun, a “rebound”, as is now fashionable to say.
Actually, the cryptocurrency market is saturated with video cards, plus the demand for the above reasons is gradually falling. Video cards appear in regular stores, from where they disappeared many months ago.
Best Buy shelves during the heyday of mining cryptocurrencyA few weeks ago, there were no maps even in online stores; they could only be bought with an opportunity. Buyers were not deterred by the high price - the cost of the Radeon 580 was $ 529.99 at Best Buy and there were still no cards on sale - as soon as they appeared, they were instantly bought. Now the price for the same card in the same network is $ 419.99 and the Radeon 580
can be bought without any problems, both offline and online.
With cards like GeForce 1070 and 1080, the situation has not improved yet - you can not buy them everywhere. But it’s not clear whether the vendor produces fewer video cards, or miners are still snapping up adapters from Nvidia more readily than from AMD. If you look at the dynamics of price changes for these systems, then you can see that the
dynamics is negative , that is, the price is going down.
Most likely, the price will go down further. One of the reasons is the low rate of recovery of the cryptocurrency rate. It is unclear whether the rate will rise or whether it will remain at current positions. But the same broadcast is unlikely to grow to $ 1,400 in the coming months. Now its price is gradually increasing, but the cost of video cards is steadily falling - mining is not nearly as profitable as a few months ago.
Not only in the course of business, the complexity of mining is growing, so even a relatively small increase in the price of cryptocurrency does not greatly affect the desire of miners to actively expand. This desire is not particularly now.
Another factor that has a strong influence on the activity of miners is the increase in popularity of the principle of “proof of ownership share”, Proof-of-stake (PoS). This is a method of protection in cryptocurrencies, when the likelihood of a participant to form the next block in the blockchain is proportional to the share of the tokens belonging to this participant.
Now the mining of bitcoins and ether is based on the principle of Proof of Work, and the ability of the miner to mine new coins is proportional to the computing power available to such a user. In the next few months, the concept of work may change to PoS and then the video card, although it will be an important element of mining, is no longer critically important, as it is now. If this happens, the demand for cards will drop very much, which will affect both their price and the volume of adapters on sale. Most likely, everything goes to the fact that soon any user will be able to purchase a card of any capacity at an adequate price, as it was before.
Of course, in some cases, mining is still very beneficial. For example, when there is no need to pay for electricity. Earlier this month, law enforcement officers discovered a mining farm at an abandoned factory in Orenburg. It was created by some entrepreneurs who decided to use free electricity (access to the plant was not disabled). Everything would have gone unnoticed, but the grid operator discovered unauthorized power consumption “over 8 million kWh”.
As it turned out , this plant houses more than 6,000 pieces of equipment that were housed in racks. The power supply cables of the farm were connected to a substation nearby. Violators of the law will have to pay a fine in the amount of income for a period of up to six months.