Items tagged with mining
One of the biggest criticisms of cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin in particular, is the highly volatile nature of digital coins. However, that's for investors and miners to worry about. A larger concern that is starting to draw increased attention is the power usage that comes from mining cryptocurrencies on a large scale. Over in Washington, where power is relatively cheap compared to other parts of the country, there's a twofold concern—that power bills will go, and that electric utilities will not be able to keep up with demand. These are not new concerns. It was reported earlier this month that Plattsburgh, New York placed an 18-month ban on new commercial cryptocurrency mining operations...
Read more...
Cryptocurrency mining is a phenomenon that many gamers and even some cities are having issues with. Gamers aren't happy because the miners are buying up all the graphics cards out there and making them hard to find and driving prices up. Some cities aren't happy because the miners are slurping up vast amounts of electricity and raising the rates for everyone in the town, this is exactly what happened in a small New York town recently. That said, for those that are willing to make an effort, even if on part time basis, re-purposing your gaming system can be a worthwhile and profitable effort, so long as cryptocurrency values hold up to recent volatility. Perhaps another answer...
Read more...
Plattsburgh, New York is city that has just over 30,000 residents, and those citizens recently saw their power bills unexpectedly increase due to a problem that is starting to affect more people in the United States. We're talking about cryptocurrency mining, of course. Plattsburgh has placed an 18-month ban on new commercial cryptocurrency mining operations after the city was forced to buy additional power to keep up with demand, in turn causing everyone's rates to go up. For gamers, the rise in cryptocurrency mining means that the hot graphics cards that we'd like to get our hands are hard to find and often priced through the roof. However, not everyone needs a graphics card. But electricity...
Read more...
The effect that cryptocurrency mining has had on the graphics card market has been so extreme, very few people could have predicted it. GPUs that were as easy to purchase as a gallon of milk became as hard to find as the hottest deal at Best Buy on Black Friday. In addition to the rarity, inflated pricing has been a real issue as well, with many GPUs costing twice as much (or more) than their intended MSRP. A $649 GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, for example, can currently be had as "cheap" as $900, and that's a relative bargain compared to some of the other pricing we've seen. It's not hard to find the same GPU going for $1,300+ at virtually any e-tailer. One of the saving graces for gamers has been companies...
Read more...
In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, Marco, Paul, and Dave get in the mood for V-Day and also chat about AMD's Raven Ridge Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G desktop APUs, a rumored NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 performance benchmarks, creepily clever dog robots, a couple of new SSDs from Samsung and Intel and more... Show Notes: 03:01 - AMD Ryzen 5 2400G And Ryzen 3 2200G Review: Raven Ridge Desktop Debuts 19:06 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080 Rocking GA104 Ampere GPU Rumored To Arrive In April 31:23 - Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: Benchmarking A Hot Rod Mobile Chip 41:08 - AMD Threadripper Cryptocurrency Mining: How To Pay For A CPU In Just Months 49:02 - Intel...
Read more...
In the span of a few short years, cryptocurrency mining went from being virtually unknown to making making waves in the tech community. While mining may not have caught on with mainstream audiences yet, the entire market has been affected by the new-age gold digging. GPU prices are particularly affected, with many models costing twice as much on the market as their SRPs would suggest. Fortunately, the same price hikes have avoided CPUs, even though they can prove pretty potent in mining. Clearly, many people want a piece of mining, including those who are in a position to take advantage of a really sweet computer -- or many computers. We're not talking malware-infected miners here, but actually...
Read more...
It looks as though it isn't just the Dow Jones that is having a crappy day in the financial world. Bitcoin, which was trading at close to $20,000 in late 2017, has come crashing down to earth in the past few weeks. Just last week, there panic coursed through the market which caused the cryptocurrency to drop below $10,000. Today, Bitcoin dropped under $7,000. According to Coindesk, Bitcoin is currently at $6,784, which represents a 17 percent drop for the day. Bitcoin hasn't seen these lows since it began a meteoric rise back in mid-November 2017. For those keeping score, Bitcoin has lost roughly half of its value since the start of 2018... ouch. When the new year started, Bitcoin had a market...
Read more...
The effect cryptocurrency mining has had on the PC gaming industry, specifically the now sky-high cost of graphics cards, is profound. However, someday mining algorithms may change enough such that GPUs aren't the only non-specialized compute engines capable of processing cryptocurreny hash algorithms effectively, or at least aren't so dominant. That said, one fairly popular coin that's based on a CPU-optimized algorithm right now is called Monero. Monero or XMR utilizes the CryptoNight hashing algorithm (as do a few other altcoins). It also just so happens that AMD's Threadripper family of processors is relatively adept at mining it, or so we've learned recently. We've shown you some of the...
Read more...
We know all too well about the dangers of cryptocurrency mining malware that can invade our PCs. We've also seen unscrupulous websites that run mining software in the background, sapping valuable resources. Now, it seems as though we need to be on the lookout for mining malware that can invade our smartphones. Kaspersky Lab warns that the malware, Tojan.AndroidOS.Loapi or "Loapi", is targeting the Android platform. The security firm warns that Loapi can be distributed via advertisement campaigns (which can cause redirects to malicious websites that download infected packages to your device). But Loapi can also be distributed via fake/unofficial app stores and fake applications posing as the real...
Read more...
All statistics are notable in their own right, but once in a while, one comes along that seems downright mind-boggling. Take this one: 500 million people are currently affected by unauthorized cryptocurrency mining. Remember when pop-up ads were the biggest offense? That's child's play. If you run into a website running a mining script, you'll be paying real money by way of a higher power bill. AdGuard, a company specializing in blocking unwanted scripts from websites, has just released a report on its research which includes the 500 million stat above. That's far from being the only interesting stat, however. 220 of the top 100,000 websites (per Amazon's Alexa ranking system) currently have...
Read more...
It has been hard for months now for PC enthusiasts and gamers to find the video cards they want, because miniers have been buying them up to mine whatever their preferred cryptocurrency might be. Back in late September, we talked about prices for GeForce GTX 10 Series video cards possibly climbing due to a DRAM shortage and Ethereum miners. Now we have some new dedicated cards for miners coming to market from Inno3D that won't help the DRAM shortage, but might at least lure miners away from the cards gamers are searching for. These are P106 mining cards, which are essentially stripped down NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics cards with no connectivity for hooking up your monitor. The cards have a scant...
Read more...
What is a blockchain? When considering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, it's best to first understand the underlying technology and framework that makes their existence possible. At its core, a blockchain is a what is described as a "shared ledger" technology that is used to record the complete history of transactions that have been made. More importantly, this ledger cannot be altered in any way, making it ideal for historical analysis and peer review. When it comes to everyday transactions -- be they financial, inventory or even account-based, traditionally, each party that is involved keeps a record of the transaction. Having these multiple ledgers can lead to discrepancies in transaction...
Read more...
If you’ve been keeping up with the cryptocurrency market at all over the past few years, then you’ll recognize Bitcoin as the posterchild for the digital currency movement. However, in recent months, Ethereum has been surging in popularity as more miners have discovered the relative ease in which money can be made using off-the-shelf hardware components — namely mid-range graphics cards. In addition to the hardware that you’ll need to purchase (or repurpose) for mining, there’s also energy consumption to keep in mind. Even though mining GPUs like the ASUS MINING P106 and Biostar Radeon RX 470D have been designed and optimized for efficiency, electrical consumption is still a big cost that must...
Read more...
Since its debut in 2009, Bitcoin has enjoyed a massive share of the cryptocurrency market to the point where it almost seemed untouchable. While there are many different cryptocurrencies out there, none have been a serious threat to the big B. That is until now. The mighty alternative to challenge Bitcoin as of late is called Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that's been around for just under two years. If you've been partaking in the Internet at all lately, you've probably found mention of the hot new currency unmissable. Many have begun wondering how they can dive in and strike it rich with Ethereum (including those who avoided the Bitcoin bandwagon entirely), and that's beginning to show in the currency's...
Read more...
With the popularity of upstart Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum on the rise and the value of well-established currencies like Bitcoin steadily increasing, there is new-found interest in Cryptocurrency mining. If you remember, a few years back, Cryptocurrency miners caused a shortage of AMD GPUs, which resulted in such high demand that what were supposed to be relatively affordable graphics cards ultimately sold at price points significantly above their MSRP. Over time, GPUs were supplanted by more power-efficient FPGAs and ASICs specifically designed for Bitcoin Cryptocurrency mining, but changes in the market have once again made GPUs a viable solution.MSI Radeon RX 580As such, there is another...
Read more...
As more and more online retailers warm up to the idea of accepting Bitcoin currency, widespread acceptance is still a long way off. This is especially true of Russia, which just dropped the ban hammer on Bitcoins on the basis that it runs afoul of existing laws. Russia actually went one step further and called the digital currency "suspicious." The announcement was made by the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. Serving as justification for the ban is the fact that the Central Bank of Russia views Bitcoin as a money substitute, which is restricted under Russian law. Image Source: Flickr (antanacoins) Russia isn't the only territory to ban Bitcoins. The virtual currency is also unwelcome...
Read more...
