This is rather interesting.
Graphics card-maker Nvidia says it will deliberately reduce the efficiency of its latest card by 50% when it is used to mine the crypto-currency Ethereum.
Crypto-currency enthusiasts have contributed to a shortage of graphics cards by snapping up supplies to use for non-gaming purposes… Nvidia said it had intervened to make sure its products “end up in the hands of gamers”.
But it will also sell a bespoke crypto-currency mining processor.
– Nvidia limits crypto-mining on new graphics card
Nvidia’s stock has had a great run in the past year. It’s not only produced extremely popular gaming cards, but its hardware has also found use in the artificial intelligence/deep learning and cryptocurrency spaces:
I’m still reading about this, and I may update this post or add a new one about my thoughts. I thought the act of deliberately modifying one’s hardware to cripple a specific function was interesting enough to document. No value judgements yet.
A part of my reading queue:
Nvidia is nerfing its RTX 3060 GPU to stop crypto miners from buying them all – Polygon
Nvidia May Restart Production of Crypto Mining GPUs if Demand Sufficient – Coindesk
I’m also looking forward to this being discussed on Nvidia’s earnings call for last quarter, scheduled for 24th Feb 2021.