Cryptocurrency & Mining - Page 25

If you thought traditional GPU crypto mining machines were crazy with 6 or 8 or 10 graphics cards, well we haven't seen anything yet -- at least not until this insanity:

Yeah, inside of that system you will see 8 x NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 flagship graphics cards that are harder to buy than unobtanium. Better yet, the Vietnam-based crypto mining enthusiast that has 8 x GeForce RTX 3090s cooled wqith mineral oil, which is an interesting choice.

Mineral oil will cool the GPU, VRAM, and VRMs and keep them at the same temperatures -- rather than liquid cooling that keeps the temperatures of those three key components at varying temps. It's an interesting, and very scary thing to see -- a very expensive 8 x GeForce RTX 3090 rig cooled with mineral oil and used as a crypto mining rig.

I woke up not too long ago to news that the hash rate limiter on NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3060 being bypassed by Chinese crypto miners, but it appears to be fake -- they claimed a custom mod, but yeah nah that didn't happen.

Our friends over at Wccftech reported a story that Chinese crypto miners had somehow bypassed the hash rate limiter on the new GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, which was then delivering around 45MH/s of ETH mining hashing power in what they thought was the DaggerHashimoto algorithm.

Well, it wasn't -- even though it looked so good having 8 x GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards in the single machine with a total hashing power of 362MH/s... it was fake.

Bitcoin has been in the headlines countless times throughout the first two months of 2021 alone, but now Citi is coming out and saying Bitcoin is at a "tipping point" and it could soon "become the currency of choice for international trade". It seems Citi is hella bullish on Bitcoin.

Citi's own global perspectives and solutions team explained in a note on Monday: "There are a host of risks and obstacles that stand in the way of Bitcoin progress. Bitcoin's future is thus still uncertain, but developments in the near term are likely to prove decisive as the currency balances at the tipping point of mainstream acceptance or a speculative implosion".

Why the fuss over Citi and its open-armed approach to Bitcoin? Well considering major financial institutions like banks have been saying Bitcoin is worthless as its not hacked by anything and it's all just hype and memes, but with legitimate world-leading companies like Tesla, Apple, MasterCard, and others accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies then it marks a big change for a conglomerate like Citi to praise Bitcoin and say it could turn into the "currency of choice for international trade".

We all know how cryptocurrency mining is huge again, with reports quickly surfacing that Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console has been hacked to support crypto mining and that it can crank out 99MH/s of mining power... well, the reports are totally fake.

The rumors of course began on Chinese forums that claimed the PS5 was hacked to support NBMiner, an Ethereum mining algorithm that was reportedly capable of 99MH/s. This would've been an incredible feat considering a tuned AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card sits at around 60MH/s mining.

The reports stated the hacked PS5 was pulling 99MH/s with the console drawing around 211W while it mined which would be impressive compared to the RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series flagship graphics cards. You can tune and overclock the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards but you'll find it impossible to bump over 60MH/s mining crypto.

NVIDIA is about to launch its mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card and with it, is cryptocurrency mining drama -- NVIDIA announced its new GeForce drivers will limit mining performance by 50% and now we have clarification on how exactly that is happening:

NVIDIA's Director of Global PR, GeForce, Bryan Del Rizzo, tweeted a reply to AnandTech's Ryan Smith who was talking about NVIDIA's driver-line crypto mining block and that he doubts "they're telling us everything" and that "one way or another we'll find out soon enough".

BDR replied with: "Hi Ryan. It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter".

Bitcoin has been on an unprecedented run recently, with new all-time highs every few days so far in 2021. The excitement will surely wane eventually, but the rocket ship hasn't run out of gas yet on its way to the moon.

Bitcoin is on the precipice of surpassing $55,000 per coin. At the time of writing this, the price is sitting at $54,600, after a $3000 spike overnight from just shut of $52,000. On February 6, Bitcoin topped $40,000 for the first time in history, mainly in reaction to Tesla's announcement of a $1.5 billion investment in the cryptocurrency.

The coin's price is reaching incredible heights, but Bitcoin hit an entirely different and probably more meaningful milestone today. For the first time, the market capitalization (market cap) of Bitcoin has surpassed the $1 trillion mark. Suppose you compare that to the market cap of the biggest companies in the world. In that case, the Bitcoin network is worth more than Johnson & Johnson, Visa, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, Facebook and Alibaba. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Petro China are the only companies in the world that compare.

We all know how Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk feels about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, with the engineer himself tweeting many times over the last few weeks about both cryptocurrencies on his Twitter.

But now, he's taking a swing at fiat money -- but first off, if you didn't know what 'fiat' was:

"The term is derived from the Latin word fiat, which means a determination by authority-in this case, it's the government that decrees the value of the currency and isn't representative of another asset or financial instrument such as gold or a check".

Bitcoin has been gaining more and more traction with the likes of Tesla Motors buying $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, Mastercard supporting cryptocurrency payments on its network this year, Apple possibly supporting cryptocurrency and so much more, driving the price of Bitcoin to a historic high of $50,000.

With the price of Bitcoin surging up and over $50,000 -- at the time of writing it was a shave under $49,700 we're looking at a market cap of $918 billion. $918,000,000,000 -- just $82 million shy of that record-breaking $1 trillion market cap which is incredible.

Major companies are turning to cryptocurrency in growing numbers, especially when the likes of Elon Musk backs Bitcoin so strongly and through his company with Tesla buying $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and will soon accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its Tesla electric vehicles.

You know things are changing when internet cafes are moving from having traditional customers, you know -- gamers, and kicking them out and closing the doors so you can use those precious GPUs for cryptocurrency mining.

Not every internet cafe is doing it, but one particular Vietnamese internet cafe has done it and announced through Facebook they did it because "profits are higher". The Vietnamese internet cafe owner explains: "Switching business season, Profits are higher than net business, whoever wants to do, contact me for free".

It's an even better deal with this particular internet cafe, as it is owned by a computer store so they're able to get their hands-on high-end mining-frenzy graphics cards like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. Right now Bitcoin mining on GPUs is making you some ridiculous profits, especially if the power you are using is cheap -- and even better if it's free.

Elon Musk has been quite vocal about his support for cryptocurrencies, and in particular, a now very popular cryptocurrency, DOGE coin.

In the past, Musk has said that when humans eventually begin to terraform Mars, the economy that will be created there will be based on cryptocurrencies. The Tesla and Space CEO said that the "Mars economy will run on crypto" and agreed with a suggestion for a Red Planet coin called "Marscoin".

Recently, Musk has been showing major support for a coin that originally started as an internet meme - Dogecoin. It was only at the beginning of this month that Musk sent Dogecoin to the moon, sending the prices skyrocketing from $0.05 to just under $0.058. Speculation has already begun about Dogecoin being a pivotal coin in the Mars economy.

Mastercard is joining Tesla in quickly adopting cryptocurrency, with the payments giant announcing it is preparing for the "future of crypto and payments" by supporting cryptocurrencies on its networks later this year.

In a blog post on their official website, Mastercard's digital asset and blockchain VP Raj Dhamodharan explained: "This is a big change that will require a lot of work. We will be very thoughtful about which assets we support based on our principles for digital currencies, which focus on consumer protections and compliance. Whatever your opinions on cryptocurrencies -- from a dyed-in-wool fanatic to utter sceptic -- the fact remains that these digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world".

"Our philosophy on cryptocurrencies is straightforward: It's about choice. Mastercard isn't here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants, and businesses to move digital value".

Bitcoin mining is chewing through a considerable amount of power worldwide, especially given the current bull run with Bitcoin hitting new all-time highs and sitting just below $50,000 per Bitcoin.

But now the attention is turning to the electricity cost of mining Bitcoin, with Cambridge researchers estimating that global Bitcoin mining consumes around 121 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year. This is more than some very big countries, where if Bitcoin was a country it would be in the top 30 energy users worldwide.

Bitcoin mining uses more electricity than countries like Argentina, the Netherlands, and even the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Michel Rauchs, researcher at The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance explained to the BBC: "It is really by design that Bitcoin consumes that much electricity. This is not something that will change in the future unless the Bitcoin price is going to significantly go down".

The last 12 hours have been one of the wildest rides for cryptocurrency and Bitcoin in particular, with Elon Musk and Tesla Motors announcing it will accept Bitcoin as payment in the future, and that Tesla is purchasing $1.5 billion of Bitcoin. Hell, it's even had crypto exchanges glitching out.

Apple is now in the headlines with a "clear opportunity" to offer a buying and selling mechanism for cryptocurrencies, according to a new research report from RBC Capital Markets. The report said that it would let Apple quickly dominate with market share, and with its world-class software and secure iOS ecosystem.

RBC analysts said in the report: "If the USA owns the most crypto assets (be it Bitcoin or other assets), it would not make logical sense in our view to ban it".

Elon Musk knows how to make an impact, with the SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO tweeting about Dogecoin and seeing the price skyrocket towards the moon -- and then, he announced through Tesla that the EV giant would be accepting Bitcoin as payment in the future.

The news of Tesla accepting Bitcoin as a payment, along with the fact that the company revealed it purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin saw the cryptocurrency surge from around $40K to $44K almost instantly. It has barely been 12 hours and in that time cryptocurrency exchanges were having technical issues dealing with the amount of traffic on their platforms.

Kraken, a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, had to temporarily disable sign-ups after they had a huge surge of traffic after the Elon + Tesla one-two punch to the moon for Bitcoin. Other crypto exchanges like Gemini and Binance had similar issues, with a Kraken spokesperson explained in an email to Reuters: "The recent run-up far exceeded anticipated increases in demand, up over five-fold from previous all-time highs".

Tesla has announced that it has purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, with the information coming from Tesla Motors' filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The news sent the price of Bitcoin off on a trip to the moon, skyrocketing from $39,500 or so right through $40,000 and right into $43,000 at the time of writing -- a rise of over 13% so far. Dogecoin is also rising by around the same amount, a coin that Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been tweeting lots about lately.

Musk recently added #Bitcoin to his Twitter profile, but the news of Tesla actually accepting Bitcoin as a payment method is the huge news here. This is a gigantic step for the company, for Bitcoin, possibly for Dogecoin with Musk continuing to pump it on his Twitter, and for cryptocurrency in general.

Chinese mining firms have been moving their crypto mining farms over to Iran because electricity prices are so cheap in Iran (1.8 to 2.2c per kWh) but now Iran is hosting some major farms, they're experiencing blackouts.

Iran is now home to 14 massive crypto mining farms that consume 300 megawatts of power, which if you compare to a city with 100,000 residents -- it's about the same power consumption. The University of Cambridge says that Iran is included in the 6 most popular places in the world to mine cryptocurrency.

If you can't find NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards cards right now, these pictures are going to make you cringe so bad it's not funny. It seems that NVIDIA and its AIB partners have zero issues pumping cards out for crypto miners, while gamers cower in the dark waiting for Ampere cards that they ordered many months ago at launch.

Uh, so if you thought using 78 x GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards to mine cryptocurrency was nuts -- now crypto miners are scooping up GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops and mining crypto with them. 20 x of these RTX 3060 gaming laptops are making $74,000 per year...

We all know how impossible it is to buy graphics cards right now, so some Chinese crypto miners are buying NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops and using them to mine crypto., Weibo blogger called 神鱼BTCe has shared images to their social media, showing off the GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops all stacked up.

You can see in the images both above and below, all of the new GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops with GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards -- from Chinese OEM company Hasee.

Elon Musk has just single-handedly sent the price of cryptocurrency Dogecoin to the moon with a bunch of tweets, sending the price of Dogecoin through the roof. His tweets kicked off a Dogecoin rocket, with the price skyrocketing from $0.05 to just under $0.058 within minutes and I'm sure the party is only just starting for Dogecoin.

45 minutes Musk started with this simple picture of a rocket, flying in front of the moon.

Then he simply said "doge" a few minutes later.

We all know how much WallStreetBets has been in the headlines -- so too has u/DeepFuckingValue who kicked all of this off with GameStop -- and pretty much matching Robinhood at this point, but now we're joined by the self-proclaimed "crypto version of WallStreetBets" with SatoshiStreetBets.

The r/SatoshiStreetBets subreddit was created nearly a year ago on February 23, 2020 -- and is now getting a big injection of users and posts because of the huge push of not just WallStreetBets and GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, Nokia and other stocks -- but cryptocurrencies are pumping, too.

DOGE has gone ballistic, with diamond hands holding that up hundreds of percent, with some posters on r/SatoshiStreetBets wanting to see GameStop accepting DogeCoin as a payment. That might sound crazy, but I don't think it's crazy anymore. GameStop would be nuts not to cater to all the people that have rallied behind it, and literally put their money where their mouths are and held the line.

As trust in retail trading implodes over the r/Wallstreetbets $GME saga, people are looking at cryptocurrency, but it's not Bitcoin making the significant gains today. Doge is now the 8th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $8.4 billion.

Usually, what "the internet" says doesn't really work as a collective mouthpiece, but sometimes enough people rally around an idea that it feels like a consensus; like the GameStop stock fiasco that's going on right, which has celebrities,

politicians, and billionaires alike rallying against hedge funds. Well, if you were caught up in the GME excitement today, you might have missed that the meme-based cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, has shot through the roof today.