Cryptocurrency & Mining - Page 24

Turkish cryptocurrency exhcange Thodex is offline and its CEO and founder has fleed the country with $2 billion of investors' money and people are (rightfully) very, very pissed off.

Thodex founder and CEO Faruk Fatih Ozer has reportedly flown to Albania, with a picture of what is purportedly Ozer leaving the Instanbul Airport posted by local media Demiroren News Agency. Thodex has 400,000 users where 390,000 of those users were active -- according to a lawyer who filed a criminal complaint against Ozer.

Ozer has of course denied allegations of the situation, saying that just $30,000 users have been affected by what's going on and that the claims of $2 billion in losses are simply "unfounded". Thodex users by the droves have been filing complaints against the crypto exchange, obviously worried that their money -- and in many cases -- life savings have been flushed down the toilet.

First off we saw an old school Nintendo GameBoy modded to mine Bitcoin, and now it's time for one of my fondest PC memories -- the Commodore 64 with the same modded treatment to mine Bitcoin. Check it out:

8-Bit Show And Tell has successfully modded a Commodore 64 system to mine Bitcoin, with the 1982 release packing a MOS Technology 6510 processor clocked at a super-speed-and-probably-cannot-run-Crysis 1.023MHz with a whopping 64KB of RAM (that's all you'll ever need -- Bill Gates) and 20KB of ROM.

It was the video of the modded GameBoy that prompted the modification of the Commodore 64 to get into cryptocurrency mining -- with the Commodore 64 modded to mine Bitcoin at just 0.3H/s which is, well, not good at all. The code was written in C programming language, noting that pure machine language could see hash rates increase by something like 10x according to 8-Bit Show And Tell.

Every day more and more people are beginning to adopt Bitcoin, and now the price of the coin is climbing its way back to the $60,000 mark right after taking a fast plunge back down to $50,000.

Despite its sharp drop in value, the US state of Louisiana recently released a new resolution that noted some of Bitcoin's greatest achievements, as well as a shout-out to the anonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The document reads, "To commend Bitcoin for its success in becoming the first decentralized trillion-dollar asset and to encourage the state and local governments to consider ways that could help them benefit from the increased use of this new technology."

Additionally, the document goes on to say that the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Louisiana commends Satoshi Nakamoto for his "contribution to economic security". Earlier in 2021, Bitcoin achieved a market cap of $1 trillion, and according to the resolution, Bitcoin "could potentially replace gold as a monetary reserve". The document goes on to explain that Bitcoin could replace gold as a monetary reserve because there is a "limited and finite and there is a maximum capacity of only twenty-one million bitcoins allowed to be produced".

Newegg has just announced that it now accepts Dogecoin as a payment method, joining cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a payment method with Newegg -- but now, it welcomes DOGE.

It's the perfect day for it to happen as today is 4/20 -- aka Dogeday, aka Elon Musk Day, aka National Weed Day. The DOGE community has celebrated April 20 for a while now, with many hundreds of thousands if not millions of DOGE holders wanting to see the cryptocurrency smashing into, and through the $1 barrier.

Newegg now accepting DOGE is a big deal, with Andrew Choi, Sr. Brand Manager of Newegg explaining: "The excitement and momentum around cryptocurrency are undeniable, and the recent surge in Dogecoin value underscores the need to make it easier for customers to make purchases with this popular cryptocurrency".

If you were pissed off about the worldwide GPU shortage was bad, then we might be in for some trying times when it comes to HDDs and SSDs as Chinese crypto miners are buying them up in bulk to mine cryptocurrency on them.

Chia is the cryptocurrency that the Chinese miners are digging into right now, which doesn't use a CPU, GPU, or ASIC -- it uses your hard drive or SSD. Chia uses a proof of space and time model, versus the proof of work model that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are mined through.

Chia was created by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, with the idea behind Chia being that HDDs and SSDs use less power -- so mining on them is much cheaper (as the HDD and SSDs are cheaper than CPUs and GPUs for the most part, and they use far, far less power and output even less heat).

We saw GIGABYTE's own NVIDIA CMP 30HX mining GPU -- and now it's time for ASUS to shine with its CMP30HX-6G mining GPU. Check it out:

ASUS is doing things a little differently with its CMP 30HX mining card: by adding ARGB lighting onto the card we have some RGB bling for when these things are crammed into Bitcoin mining rigs and crypto mining rigs across the world. Inside, ASUS has 6GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit memory bus at 14Gbps, a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and we're sure to expect a Turing TU116-100 GPU.

We have a thicker 2.7-slot design with a dual-fan cooler, with ASUS set to charge around $800 for its new CMP 30HX mining card.

We've been hearing about NVIDIA and its fight against cryptocurrency mining on its new Ampere range of GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards -- but here's a doozy: NVIDIA is preparing an entire new stack of GeForce RTX 30 cards with revised GPUs that have cryptocurrency mining limitations.

NVIDIA hasn't been shy about gimping its graphics cards from crypto mining, with NVIDIA being praised -- and pissing off gamers by limiting them from crypto mining. Well, it looks like entire new GPU revisions have been reportedly sent to AIB partners with their GPUs having crypto mining limitations.

Igor's Lab is reporting that the newly-teased GeForce RTX 3080 Ti qualification samples see AIBs required to update them with crypto mining limiters -- something that cannot be undone. We heard that it was being done with the newly-tweaked GeForce RTX 3060 but it seems it's being done across the board... so I guess we might see the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (crypto mining limited), the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (crypto mining limited) and other GeForce RTX 30 series Ampere GPUs with gimped crypto mining released over the coming months.

NVIDIA looks to be getting serious with limiting the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card and its crypto mining abilities, with a rumored new Ampere GPU that will permanently gimp crypto mining.

The new GA106-302 GPU would replace the current GA106-300 that is inside of GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards, with the new GA106-302 based GeForce RTX 3060 having a totally new PCI Device ID which will completely throw away the ability of crypto mining through driver hacks and everything in between.

Once NVIDIA has these GPUs going out to AIB partners and the new GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards are on shelves, which should be sometime in May -- you won't tell the difference. NVIDIA will not be detailing the difference between the GA106-300 and new GA106-302 variants, you would have to tear it apart to find out.

NVIDIA's first Crypto Mining Processor HX series cards are now floating out into the wild, with GIGABYTE being the first with the launch of its new CMP 30HX mining card.

The new GIGABYTE CMP 30HX is on sale in Romania for around $720 with a dual-fan WINDFORCE 2X cooler with 2 x 90mm fans, 6GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit memory bus at 14Gbps and a small 3-month warranty. The CPU core clock is at 1785MHz and the card requires a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and uses the PCIe 3.0 x4 standard.

Also remember that the NVIDIA CMP 30HX is the slowest of all of the Crypto Mining Processor HX cards and that there is also the CMP 40HX, and CMP 50HX which pack much higher hash rate mining power. There's also the rumored Ampere-powered CMP 90HX and CMP 170X that are reportedly on their way, too.

NVIDIA is selling a butt load more of its Crypto Mining Processors (CMP) than it had expected, with an expected $50 million in sales from NVIDIA CMP products up to a much higher $150 million in expected sales.

The news comes directly from NVIDIA during their annual Investor Day, revealing that first-quarter revenue for fiscal 2022 is tracking above outlook. NVIDIA is now expecting over $5.3 million in revenue for Q1, with $100 million more expected from the sales of Crypto Mining Processors.

NVIDIA explains: "NVIDIA's market platforms include Gaming, Data Center, Professional Visualization, and Automotive. The company also raised its first-quarter revenue estimate for its new CMP product for industrial-scale cryptocurrency mining to $150 million, up from $50 million previously expected".

It seems that Hong Kong customs are having a good day having seized some 300 of NVIDIA's new CMP (Crypto Mining Processors) mining cards.

According to MyDrivers, Hong Kong customs have seized the crypto mining GPUs in a smuggling attempt -- but that's not what you should be doing when in some regions China has bans on crypto mining farms. There were massive surges of electricity demand from crypto mining farms enjoying cheap electricity prices in many regions of China.

Around 65% of global mining power requirements are supplied by China according to estimates, and because of that the government has been clamping down on crypto mining farms pretty hard. The 300 new NVIDIA crypto mining GPUs were seized, with the entry-level CMP 30HX seized in large quantities.

NVIDIA's new CMP mining cards have a new customer with one of the biggest and oldest Bitcoin mining companies securing $30 million worth of the new CMP mining cards from NVIDIA.

Hut 8 Mining Corp. will have the first batches of NVIDIA's new CMP mining cards arrive in May, with all of the GPUs expected to be installed and cranked up into mining Bitcoin by the summer. Hut 8's mining capacity will be expanded by 1600GH/s which is the same as around 13,333 x NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards when it comes to mining hash rate power (they do around 90-120MH/s each).

CEO Jaime Leverton explained: "The adoption and the development of applications interacting with various blockchain networks have never been stronger, opening many possibilities across a variety of industries. We are incredibly excited to have these high performance CMPs in our fleet. We believe mining with CMPs will open up new opportunities for Hut 8 and will allow us to continue to execute on our long- and short-term plans for increased and diversified revenue streams".

Tesla's own in-house "Technoking of Tesla" has tweeted about Dogecoin, pushing the cryptocurrencies price skyrocketing towards the moon, with Elon Musk tweeting that he'd put literal dogecoin on the literal moon.

Musk tweeted just 15 minutes ago: "SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon", but it is April Fools Day today, so we don't know if he is joking around or not. But this is Elon Musk... he probably would put a "literal Dogecoin on the literal moon" so I guess we'll have to wait and see what he does.

The price of Dogecoin instantly mooned, moving from $0.054 to past $0.06 at the time of writing, a 16% change in minutes.

Yesterday it was Visa announcing payment settlements using cryptocurrency and the newly-formed USD Coin, and today it is PayPal set to announce it is allowing US customers to use cryptocurrencies they hold to pay at 29 million merchants across the world.

The news is coming directly from Reuters with an exclusive piece titled "PayPal launches crypto checkout service", with the outlet noting that this move could "significantly boost use of digital assets in everyday commerce". If you are based in the US and hold cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, or Litecoin in your PayPal digital wallet -- then you'll be able to convert that to fiat currencies at checkout, and then make your purchase like normal.

President and CEO Dan Schulman told Reuters: "This is the first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies in the same way as a credit card or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet".

Visa has just announced that it will begin using cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, with global wallet partner Crypto.com over the ethereum blockchain.

Crypto.com will now settle a percentage of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa card program in USDC, which is a cryptocurrency that is pegged directly to the US dollar in a 1:1 ratio. Behind the scenes Visa's digital currency settlement partner is Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank. Funds will be sent from Crypto.com to Visa's own ethereum address at the bank.

As it stands Visa's business partners need to settle transactions with the credit card provider in fiat currencies that it accepts, but now they can be settled with USDC and put up into the ethereum blockchain. Visa is partnered with 35 digital currency platforms that include Coinbase, Crypto.com, BlockFi, and Bitpanda which collectively have over 50 million active users.

I still remember owning a Nintendo Game Boy but I never thought I'd be writing an article explaining how someone has modded their Game Boy and is now crypto mining Bitcoin from it. Yes, you read that right -- this guy has modded his Game Boy and is mining Bitcoin on it for real -- check it out:

You can't just turn the Nintendo Game Boy on and start mining Bitcoin, as there is no internet connection -- so first, you'll need the Raspberry Pi Pico which acts as a link cable to USB adapter. This is plugged into a PC which gives the Nintendo Game Boy an internet connection which is required for cryptocurrency mining, or else you wouldn't be able to mine Bitcoin from your Game Boy, of course!

There are a few more steps required before you can get Bitcoin mining on your Game Boy, but when it does Nintendo's portable game console is capable of pumping out 0.8 hashes per second, which when compared to a current-gen ASIC miner which pumps out around 100 terahashes per second... the GameBoy is 125 trillion -- or 125,000,000,000,000x slower than the current-gen ASIC miner.

Tesla boss Elon Musk tweeted out that you can now buy a Tesla vehicle using Bitcoin, but it is only in the US for now with people outside of the US needing to wait until later this year.

Musk simply tweeted out: "You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin", which saw the price of BTC flying up from just under $54K to just under $57K and resting at around $56.3K at the time of writing. There was a follow-up tweet that was very interesting, with Musk saying that "Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly".

Even more interestingly, he added: "Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency". This means that Tesla will be HODLing the BTC it acquires through customers buying Tesla vehicles with Bitcoin and NOT converting it over to fiat money. This is a major move, as Tesla would benefit greatly with the price of Bitcoin rising the company will continue to increase its BTC bag size with more and more Tesla vehicles sold (and paid for in Bitcoin).

A hot new rumor is teasing that NVIDIA could use its flagship Ampere A100 GPU for what would be the best crypto mining GPU ever made... with a crazy amount of hash rate mining power.

NVIDIA has made a couple of iterations of its A100 GPU with the A100 made in SXM form factor, and then the company released a PCIe-based version of the card that was passively cooled. Speaking of the NVIDIA A100 PCIe accelerator, that card will set you back $10,000 -- so these new Ampere A100-based crypto mining cards would be hella expensive, but man they would be mining monsters.

The NVIDIA Ampere A100 GPU is an incredible GPU feat, with 19.5 TFLOPs of single-precision compute power, and an insane 40GB of HBM2 memory with 1.6TB/sec of memory bandwidth. That memory bandwidth is the key to mining power, and you wouldn't even need 40GB of it... it can be cut down to a single 8GB HBM2 stack.

I was only just reporting that some new GeForce drivers removed the ETH crypto mining hash rate limiter from the newly-released, impossible-to-find, stupidly-expensive GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.

Well, that driver seems to have been the winning ticket here with NVIDIA now confirming the news themselves. NVIDIA said in a statement to The Verge: "A developer driver inadvertently included code used for internal development which removes the hash rate limiter on RTX 3060 in some configurations".

NVIDIA added: "The driver has been removed".

It seems all that kerfuffle over NVIDIA's new mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 being a crypto mining rig beast is done and dusted, first it was supposedly secured by a handshake between the driver and BIOS that gimped the ETH mining hash rate power of the RTX 3060... and now it's gone?!

According to ComputerBase and HardwareLuxx who have both tested and played around with NVIDIA's new GeForce 470.05 drivers, which reportedly see the Ethereum hash rate limiter disabled. It was previously reported that you couldn't simply remove the hash rate limiter on the GeForce RTX 3060 by driver alone and required new firmware... but it seems it can be done.

The new driver isn't available to the general public just yet as it is available through NVIDIA's internal BETA program, with ComputerBase reporting: "ComputerBase can confirm that only the beta driver GeForce 470.05 distributed by NVIDIA to developers and via the Windows Insider Program ensures that the performance of the GeForce RTX 3060 in the Ethereum algorithm no longer drops. A BIOS update is not necessary".