The emergence of cryptomonnaies is affecting all sectors of the economy. One of the most affected, and not necessarily to bad, will undoubtedly have been that of the manufacturers of graphics card (GPU). Indeed, more and more miners are throwing themselves on the latest GPUs, often for huge orders for mining farms. The collateral damage in this case? Gamers who see the prices go up...
Increasingly expensive graphics cards
Building your own PC has long been a key component in the life of a gamer. The solution, in addition to being economical, makes it possible to know a little more about the internal functioning of a PC. However, the price of graphics cards has been exploding for a year now. The main reason would be the explosion of the cryptocurrency market and the mining business that is intrinsically associated with it.
As you can see, the price of all high-end graphics cards has been seriously impacted by ever-increasing demand. Some countries have already been out of stock, and Nvidia is posting the GTX 1080 TI out of stock on its own site.
Nvidia to rescue gamers
According to an article in the German media ComputerBase, Nvidia recently made a request to most of the major resellers of its graphics cards.
Players are the top priority for NVIDIA. All activities related to our GeForce product line focus on this primary target group. Given the current situation, in order to ensure that players continue to benefit from a good availability of GeForce graphics cards, we recommend that our business partners take appropriate steps to meet the needs of players as they usually do." Boris Böhles, spokesperson for Nvidia
Despite this announcement, the Nvidia teams made it clear that the final decision would rest with the merchants, stressing that they did not have to comply with this "recommendation". The manufacturer stated that he never wanted to interfere "with the freedom and independence of trade".
It is also obvious that the company would not go so far as to shoot itself in the foot by banning mining. In this regard, we were talking about it in a newsletter a few weeks ago, Nvidia has now banned the use of its software in the construction of big data centers... With the exception of blockchains! To make it simple, it is forbidden to create data centers, but it is allowed to mine!
This is nothing surprising nor shocking coming from Nvidia. They have stated repeatedly that they don't see miners as a key consumer for their cards. They believe miners will come and go and market demand will spin on a dime with miners whereas gamers are near constant and growing over time. From Nvidia's perspective, it's better to serve a steady audience well than to commit substantial resources to a customer base that could dry up in an instance with the collapse of mining profitability.
Not that I agree with Nvidia's position -- just that as a share holder, I also get their business reports and position statements, so it's something I've seen them elaborate about multiple times over the last year.