RTX 3060 now selling for below MSRP in china following expected and unsurprising crypto crash

[decolon]

36 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I rarely see any valid arguments from the anti-crypto side though.

• "It uses a lot of power" - Yeah but so does a lot of things. Using a lot of power in and of itself is not necessarily bad. Gaming uses a ton of power every year as well but I'd guess that most people on this forum thinks that's fine.
   
• "It's not a real currency" - What even is a "real currency"? The US dollar and pretty much all other major currencies are fiat money as well that only have the value people put on it.
   
• "It's too volatile" and "it's a bubble!"- Yes but that's exactly why some people invest in it. Just look at GameStop if you want to see a similar situation where people pour money into something that is clearly just being bought because people think it will rise a lot in value so they can sell it. Except when it happened to GameStop this forum were apeshit and thought it was the best thing ever for some reason.
   
• "Miners are buying cards so I can't get any!" - There is no evidence that mining have had any significant impact on availably of graphics cards. Extremely high demand, lower than usual output from factories and difficulties shipping products, on top of other things such as new tariffs in the US on the other hand, have very well documented effects on the supply and demand chains. That's why all industries, not just graphics cards, are suffering from the same issues. Or are you going to blame miners for the difficulties producing mousepads and cars as well.

 

 

Also, why wouldn't you buy a mining card? If I were to buy a second hand card and I had to pick between a card that some gamer had, and some card a miner had, then I'd pick the card from the miner every day of the week, if I could be bothered to even make a distinction between the two.

GPUs aren't like car engines where they got a ton of moving parts that gets worn out. It doesn't matter if you run your GPU at 100% load or 50% load. It will not get more or less worn out.

The only wear that occurs on GPUs are the thermal compound getting dried up, or the cooling fins getting clogged up with dust, both of which are more likely to happen gamers than crypto miners.

Thermal compound gets dried up much quicker when it goes through lots of heating and cooling cycles, which is exactly what happens when you game. You start the PC (the GPU is cold), you play your game (the GPU heats up) and then you turn it off (the GPU cools down). Constantly heating up and cooling down your GPU will wear it down more than constantly running it at the same temp, even if that temp is high.

Since a lot of crypto miners also have multiple systems, the amount of dust in the room is more evenly spread out. The room doesn't become more dusty because there are more rigs mining crypto in them. It's the same amount of dust, but it gets distributed across more systems so each system is less dusty overall.

Besides, you could just clean the fins.

 

 

Maybe I am missing some arguments, I don't participate in crypto discussions that much (not interested in crypto), but those are the arguments I see get parroted all the time, and every single one of them is bollocks and comes from ignorance.

Except all of the points are factually accurate...like since when has stating facts become "bullocks" and "ignorance". It seems like society has gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance.

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, decolon said:

Except all of the points are factually accurate...like since when has stating facts become "bullocks" and "ignorance". It seems like society has gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance.

You're absolutely right. Society seems to have gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance.

Kind of like how I explained why common misconceptions about crypto mining are wrong and then you just reply with "no they are right" without explaining why you feel that my explanations were inadequate.

 

Apparently just saying "I am right and you're wrong" is enough to some people like you. Great argument.

[decolon]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You're absolutely right. Society seems to have gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance.

Kind of like how I explained why common misconceptions about crypto mining are wrong and then you just reply with "no they are right" without explaining why you feel that my explanations were inadequate.

 

Apparently just saying "I am right and you're wrong" is enough to some people like you. Great argument.

1. Cypto mining uses a lot of power -  this is a fact. Crypto mining in China used more energy than the entire country of Brazil. Gaming doesn't even come close because gamers don't keep their rigs drawing 200+ Watts of power 24/7. I don't see how stating this objective fact is ignorance.

2. Bitcoin is not a real currency. Currency in economics is defined as a medium that is a) a store of value and b) a medium of trade. Bitcoin accomplishes neither ( I cannot use bitcoin to pay bills or buy groceries at walmart, furthermore its price volatility means it can't store value bc $50 of bitcoin today could be worth $25 in a couple of hours). In this case, it literally does not meet the definition of what a currency is. Once again a factually correct statement.

3. "Too Volatile" and "A Bubble" - once again its price fluctuates wildly - literally the definition of volatile. You also concede that this is true, yet still claim anyone who says this is "ignorant" or "bullocks"

4. Crypto miners have affected the supply of cards. Granted this is not 100% the reason for the retail shortage but is an exacerbating factor (Nvidia and AMD have both sold a bunch of their already low supply directly to mining groups, limiting the number available at retail)

All 4 statements that you claimed were "ignorant" and "bullocks" are factual statements. Don't attack people just because you can't accept the facts.

[Brooksie359]

53 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I rarely see any valid arguments from the anti-crypto side though.

• "It uses a lot of power" - Yeah but so does a lot of things. Using a lot of power in and of itself is not necessarily bad. Gaming uses a ton of power every year as well but I'd guess that most people on this forum thinks that's fine.
   
• "It's not a real currency" - What even is a "real currency"? The US dollar and pretty much all other major currencies are fiat money as well that only have the value people put on it.
   
• "It's too volatile" and "it's a bubble!"- Yes but that's exactly why some people invest in it. Just look at GameStop if you want to see a similar situation where people pour money into something that is clearly just being bought because people think it will rise a lot in value so they can sell it. Except when it happened to GameStop this forum were apeshit and thought it was the best thing ever for some reason.
   
• "Miners are buying cards so I can't get any!" - There is no evidence that mining have had any significant impact on availably of graphics cards. Extremely high demand, lower than usual output from factories and difficulties shipping products, on top of other things such as new tariffs in the US on the other hand, have very well documented effects on the supply and demand chains. That's why all industries, not just graphics cards, are suffering from the same issues. Or are you going to blame miners for the difficulties producing mousepads and cars as well.

 

 

Also, why wouldn't you buy a mining card? If I were to buy a second hand card and I had to pick between a card that some gamer had, and some card a miner had, then I'd pick the card from the miner every day of the week, if I could be bothered to even make a distinction between the two.

GPUs aren't like car engines where they got a ton of moving parts that gets worn out. It doesn't matter if you run your GPU at 100% load or 50% load. It will not get more or less worn out.

The only wear that occurs on GPUs are the thermal compound getting dried up, or the cooling fins getting clogged up with dust, both of which are more likely to happen gamers than crypto miners.

Thermal compound gets dried up much quicker when it goes through lots of heating and cooling cycles, which is exactly what happens when you game. You start the PC (the GPU is cold), you play your game (the GPU heats up) and then you turn it off (the GPU cools down). Constantly heating up and cooling down your GPU will wear it down more than constantly running it at the same temp, even if that temp is high.

Since a lot of crypto miners also have multiple systems, the amount of dust in the room is more evenly spread out. The room doesn't become more dusty because there are more rigs mining crypto in them. It's the same amount of dust, but it gets distributed across more systems so each system is less dusty overall.

Besides, you could just clean the fins.

 

 

Maybe I am missing some arguments, I don't participate in crypto discussions that much (not interested in crypto), but those are the arguments I see get parroted all the time, and every single one of them is bollocks and comes from ignorance.

Literally every single one of those arguments is a difference in opinion and not ignorance driven. This is exactly what I am talking about. You just assume people are ignorant rather than simply disagree with you. Cryptocurrency consumes and excessive amount of energy and the creators of ethereum have even said so in their decision to go to proof of stake stating that their decision was largely because Cryptocurrency has a huge issue with energy consumption and pow will always result in massive amounts of energy consumption. Then there is the classic misunderstanding of what fiat currency is and what it draws its value out of. Fiat currency is legally required to be accepted as repayment of debt making the currency tied to the goods and services that can be bought in said country so aka a real currency that doesn't have an arbitrary value. And yeah Cryptocurrency is volatile in nature and history has shown that just like stocks are. The last argument baffles me as yeah Cryptocurrency being huge is 100% go to make availability worse than if it wasn't. That is simple supply and demand idk how that is even an argument. Well I guess I'm just ignorant though

[decolon]

24 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Literally every single one of those arguments is a difference in opinion and not ignorance driven. This is exactly what I am talking about. You just assume people are ignorant rather than simply disagree with you. Cryptocurrency consumes and excessive amount of energy and the creators of ethereum have even said so in their decision to go to proof of stake stating that their decision was largely because Cryptocurrency has a huge issue with energy consumption and pow will always result in massive amounts of energy consumption. Then there is the classic misunderstanding of what fiat currency is and what it draws its value out of. Fiat currency is legally required to be accepted as repayment of debt making the currency tied to the goods and services that can be bought in said country so aka a real currency that doesn't have an arbitrary value. And yeah Cryptocurrency is volatile in nature and history has shown that just like stocks are. The last argument baffles me as yeah Cryptocurrency being huge is 100% go to make availability worse than if it wasn't. That is simple supply and demand idk how that is even an argument. Well I guess I'm just ignorant though

Just realized you were replying to someone else my bad. Scratch my last comment. I am in agreement

[Brooksie359]

14 minutes ago, decolon said:

Do you even know what an Opinion is? Bitcoin uses a lot of energy is a fact, you can't claim its an opinion. Whether or not that should be a concern is an opinion but that is not what we are talking about. There is not a fundamental misunderstanding of what a currency is, unless you believe that literal economists don't know jack shit about economics. The definition of currency that I gave is literally how economics defines currency, not reddit, wikipedia or some other random source on the internet. I am not arguing for or against crypto, but saying that facts such as "Crypto uses lots of energy", "Crypto is volatile", are opinions is beyond ridiculous, as you literally contradict yourself by saying "Yes it uses a lot of energy, but that's an opinion", if that's the case, literally everything is an opinion and nothing matters anymore, because reality can be whatever you want it to be

Unfortunately the term "uses alot of energy" is entirely subjective as there is no specific way to determine what amount of energy is alot of energy. If you said a specific amount of power it uses then that would be fact but to say it uses alot of energy is technically an opinion unfortunately. For the currency thing yeah it is pretty much a fact but obviously people think it isn't and don't realize what fiat currency is and why it isn't just given value based on thoughts and feelings. 

[decolon]

4 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Unfortunately the term "uses alot of energy" is entirely subjective as there is no specific way to determine what amount of energy is alot of energy. If you said a specific amount of power it uses then that would be fact but to say it uses alot of energy is technically an opinion unfortunately. For the currency thing yeah it is pretty much a fact but obviously people think it isn't and don't realize what fiat currency is and why it isn't just given value based on thoughts and feelings. 

Even if it is an opinion, you shouldn't call people with different opinions "ignorant". That just comes off as insulting and someone resorting to personal attacks because they disagree even if that wasn't the intention

[Brooksie359]

Just now, decolon said:

Even if it is an opinion, you shouldn't call people with different opinions "ignorant". That just comes off as insulting and someone resorting to personal attacks because they disagree even if that wasn't the intention

When did I call anyone ignorant? I legitimately was saying the exact opposite from the beginning. My original comment was that it was just differences in opinion and not people being ignorant so idk how we got here. 

[decolon]

15 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

When did I call anyone ignorant? I legitimately was saying the exact opposite from the beginning. My original comment was that it was just differences in opinion and not people being ignorant so idk how we got here. 

Taken verbatim from original post:

"but those are the arguments I see get parroted all the time, and every single one of them is bollocks and comes from ignorance." 

Maybe I misinterpreted it? I got the impression you were calling those arguments ignorant, so I was just pointing out that they are factual or at the very least, opinions based on factual data, not ignorant. 

[Blademaster91]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I rarely see any valid arguments from the anti-crypto side though.

And all I see are the same arguments from the "pro-crypto" side, also not surprised yet another thread gets turned into a mining argument.

1. It uses a lot of power, yet all that power used only benefits those invested in crypto, you don't have to game to be able to enjoy watching someone play games.

2. To me it's not a real currency, it isn't a conventional way of paying for things, and again doesn't benefit anyone except those invested in crypto.

3. it's way too volatile for the average person to use as a real currency, considering how much it can drop in a day, or someone can say "crypto sucks" on twitter then it drops a ton in value.

4. Look at this thread, apparently China trying to ban crypto is enough to get people selling their cards below MSRP, meaning miners had enough of an impact on card supply and prices.

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Also, why wouldn't you buy a mining card? If I were to buy a second hand card and I had to pick between a card that some gamer had, and some card a miner had, then I'd pick the card from the miner every day of the week, if I could be bothered to even make a distinction between the two.

GPUs aren't like car engines where they got a ton of moving parts that gets worn out. It doesn't matter if you run your GPU at 100% load or 50% load. It will not get more or less worn out.

The only wear that occurs on GPUs are the thermal compound getting dried up, or the cooling fins getting clogged up with dust, both of which are more likely to happen gamers than crypto miners.

Thermal compound gets dried up much quicker when it goes through lots of heating and cooling cycles, which is exactly what happens when you game. You start the PC (the GPU is cold), you play your game (the GPU heats up) and then you turn it off (the GPU cools down). Constantly heating up and cooling down your GPU will wear it down more than constantly running it at the same temp, even if that temp is high.

Since a lot of crypto miners also have multiple systems, the amount of dust in the room is more evenly spread out. The room doesn't become more dusty because there are more rigs mining crypto in them. It's the same amount of dust, but it gets distributed across more systems so each system is less dusty overall.

Besides, you could just clean the fins.

 

 

Maybe I am missing some arguments, I don't participate in crypto discussions that much (not interested in crypto), but those are the arguments I see get parroted all the time, and every single one of them is bollocks and comes from ignorance.

If I had to choose I would buy a card from someone that occasionally played games with it, but it's used and the seller could say they never mined with it even though they did. I would be hesitant on buying any used RTX 30 series card anyway, because VRAM can fail,especially with mining keeping the VRAM over 100C, the 3080 and 3090 are known to run hot.

Thermal paste and thermal pads will dry up faster with more constant use, the card would have to be below MSRP as decent quality thermal pads aren't exactly cheap.

I'd like to see a source of how more cards equals less dust, I doubt a warehouse that isn't air conditioned is any better for the GPU than in a gaming PC.

So if anyone disagrees with your opinion they're ignorant?  i've seen this a lot on crypto argument threads, if someone doesn't agree with the "pro-miner" crowd opinion they're ignorant.

[Brooksie359]

41 minutes ago, decolon said:

Taken verbatim from original post:

"but those are the arguments I see get parroted all the time, and every single one of them is bollocks and comes from ignorance." 

Maybe I misinterpreted it? I got the impression you were calling those arguments ignorant, so I was just pointing out that they are factual or at the very least, opinions based on factual data, not ignorant. 

That isn't even my comment lol. I think you have me confused for someone else. 

[tikker]

1 hour ago, decolon said:

1. Cypto mining uses a lot of power -  this is a fact. Crypto mining in China used more energy than the entire country of Brazil. Gaming doesn't even come close because gamers don't keep their rigs drawing 200+ Watts of power 24/7. I don't see how stating this objective fact is ignorance.

 This is the biggest friction point though. People are rather vocal about how much energy Bitcoin and crypto mining uses, but go to great lengths to defend or deny gaming's energy usage. Let's do the math. You can see my specs in my signature. When doing nothing or some light productivity and mining my stuff hovers around 45 W CPU + 200 W GPU, so over 24 hours that is 5.9 kWh. Gaming the CPU it hits 90 W CPU + 220 W GPU or 1.9 kWh for a 6 hour gaming session. It is true that mining runs 24/7 and gaming doesn't, which results for a "normal" user in a much lower power draw for gaming. However:

• According to Statista there are 2.4 (give or take) BILLION gamers in the world. I'm not going to pay a subscription to fact check their sources, so take this as you will, but it doesn't sound that unrealistic to me.
• A 2019 report from California reports 4.1 TWh for PC gaming over 2016. That's just California. It has 39.5 million inhabitants according to Google. 2.4 billion / 39.5 million = 61 approximately, which would scale this energy usage to 4.5 TWh x 61 = 273 TWh per year. Bitcoin's estimated annualised energy usage was like 10 TWh or so in 2016 and Even last year at its peak Bitcoin's annualised energy usage was estimated at "only" ~141 TWh
• The study from 2016 which was used in that report estimated around 1 billion gamers world wide at that time and conclude with "While gaming PCs represent only 2.5 % of the global installed PC equipment base, our initial scoping estimate suggests that gaming PCs consumed 75 TWh/year ($10 billion) of electricity globally in 2012 or approximately 20 % of total PC, notebook, and console energy usage. Based on projected changes in the installed base, we estimate that consumption will more than double by the year 2020 if the current rate of equipment sales is unabated and efficiencies are not improved." This is actually fairly in line with my back-of-the-envelope extrapolation.

So what is worse? Bitcoin using more energy then entire countries or gaming in California alone already using more energy than entire countries? Spoiler: both are part of the same problem. Let me get this straight: I am not defending Bitcoin or proof of work's energy usage. It has become a big problem and needs to be solved, but it is factually incorrect that "gaming doesn't even come close". In fact, if we treated gaming with the same scrutiny we treat Bitcoin we should have had "gaming world wide uses more energy than entire countries" or "has gaming gone too far?" headlines alll over the place years ago already. We just tend to feel more justified in gaming as that provides "meaningful entertainment" whereas crypto (in the opposition's words) is just "a useless wannabe currency", but what if I consider gaming to be "useless entertainment" (go outside, read book, play board games etc.) and crypto a "meaningful practical service" be it investment or my daily payments? That often just gets shot down without even considering it. That is why the ignorance bit has been named a few times now.

1 hour ago, decolon said:

2. Bitcoin is not a real currency. Currency in economics is defined as a medium that is a) a store of value and b) a medium of trade. Bitcoin accomplishes neither ( I cannot use bitcoin to pay bills or buy groceries at walmart, furthermore its price volatility means it can't store value bc $50 of bitcoin today could be worth $25 in a couple of hours). In this case, it literally does not meet the definition of what a currency is. Once again a factually correct statement.

Well I hate to break it to you, but pretty much every legal currency nowadays is a fiat currency which is literally worthless and has no inherent value by design. The system has been setup to intentionally get rid of valuable things as money. It has no value other than the government saying a $1 bill is worth $1, forcing it to be accepted everywhere and you being able to pay your taxes with it. Here's another fact: due to inflation our daily currencies continually lose worth. What cost $50 worth of USD in 2010 now costs $65. Congratulations, you have lost money by keeping that $50 in your wallet. How's that for store of value? Our currencies are stable enough that they can somewhat act as one, but they certainly aren't perfect because inflation is depreciating your savings every year.

 

Also fact: cryptocurrencies are currencies just like any other. They are not legal tender (though it is now in El Salvador), so you cannot pay your taxes with them, but they are currencies. A currency is simply a medium of exchange and nothing more. If you allow me to pay you 3 goats for a car, goats are the currency. The only problem is that an economy cannot function on a currency that it too volatile, so it needs to be reasonably stable. It is not a hard requirement for a currency.

1 hour ago, decolon said:

3. "Too Volatile" and "A Bubble" - once again its price fluctuates wildly - literally the definition of volatile. You also concede that this is true, yet still claim anyone who says this is "ignorant" or "bullocks"

Crypto's volatility is nothing new. It's immature emerging stuff, of course it will fluctuate wildly. There is no problem with that. It has just had the for some unfortunate for others fortunate side-effect that the biggest ones have turned into speculative investments. That's also why it's an excellent place to make or lose a hell of a lot more money than the boring stock market. Just a much riskier game.

 

If you want to use it as an actual currency then do not use Bitcoin. Use a crypto that aims to be a useable day-to-day currency. Nano, Stellar and likely others that I don't follow are extremely cheap (or even free) to transfer and are fast as well. This ties in with the general ignorance (as in unawareness) that there is much more to crypto than just Bitcoin. Every crypto veteran will tell you that Bitcoin is basically useless as anything else than just an investment now.

1 hour ago, decolon said:

4. Crypto miners have affected the supply of cards. Granted this is not 100% the reason for the retail shortage but is an exacerbating factor (Nvidia and AMD have both sold a bunch of their already low supply directly to mining groups, limiting the number available at retail)

Nobody is denying that either, but we have no factual numbers as to how much they have affected it.

[Brooksie359]

15 minutes ago, tikker said:

 This is the biggest friction point though. People are rather vocal about how much energy Bitcoin and crypto mining uses, but go to great lengths to defend or deny gaming's energy usage. Let's do the math. You can see my specs in my signature. When doing nothing or some light productivity and mining my stuff hovers around 45 W CPU + 200 W GPU, so over 24 hours that is 5.9 kWh. Gaming the CPU it hits 90 W CPU + 220 W GPU or 1.9 kWh for a 6 hour gaming session. It is true that mining runs 24/7 and gaming doesn't, which results for a "normal" user in a much lower power draw for gaming. However:

• According to Statista there are 2.4 (give or take) BILLION gamers in the world. I'm not going to pay a subscription to fact check their sources, so take this as you will, but it doesn't sound that unrealistic to me.
• A 2019 report from California reports 4.1 TWh for PC gaming over 2016. That's just California. It has 39.5 million inhabitants according to Google. 2.4 billion / 39.5 million = 61 approximately, which would scale this energy usage to 4.5 TWh x 61 = 273 TWh per year. Bitcoin's estimated annualised energy usage was like 10 TWh or so in 2016 and Even last year at its peak Bitcoin's annualised energy usage was estimated at "only" ~141 TWh
• The study from 2016 which was used in that report estimated around 1 billion gamers world wide at that time and conclude with "While gaming PCs represent only 2.5 % of the global installed PC equipment base, our initial scoping estimate suggests that gaming PCs consumed 75 TWh/year ($10 billion) of electricity globally in 2012 or approximately 20 % of total PC, notebook, and console energy usage. Based on projected changes in the installed base, we estimate that consumption will more than double by the year 2020 if the current rate of equipment sales is unabated and efficiencies are not improved." This is actually fairly in line with my back-of-the-envelope extrapolation.

So what is worse? Bitcoin using more energy then entire countries or gaming in California alone already using more energy than entire countries? Spoiler: both are part of the same problem. Let me get this straight: I am not defending Bitcoin or proof of work's energy usage. It has become a big problem and needs to be solved, but it is factually incorrect that "gaming doesn't even come close". In fact, if we treated gaming with the same scrutiny we treat Bitcoin we should have had "gaming world wide uses more energy than entire countries" or "has gaming gone too far?" headlines alll over the place years ago already. We just tend to feel more justified in gaming as that provides "meaningful entertainment" whereas crypto (in the opposition's words) is just "a useless wannabe currency", but what if I consider gaming to be "useless entertainment" (go outside, read book, play board games etc.) and crypto a "meaningful practical service" be it investment or my daily payments? That often just gets shot down without even considering it. That is why the ignorance bit has been named a few times now.

Well I hate to break it to you, but pretty much every legal currency nowadays is a fiat currency which is literally worthless and has no inherent value by design. The system has been setup to intentionally get rid of valuable things as money. It has no value other than the government saying a $1 bill is worth $1, forcing it to be accepted everywhere and you being able to pay your taxes with it. Here's another fact: due to inflation our daily currencies continually lose worth. What cost $50 worth of USD in 2010 now costs $65. Congratulations, you have lost money by keeping that $50 in your wallet. How's that for store of value? Our currencies are stable enough that they can somewhat act as one, but they certainly aren't perfect because inflation is depreciating your savings every year.

 

Also fact: cryptocurrencies are currencies just like any other. They are not legal tender (though it is now in El Salvador), so you cannot pay your taxes with them, but they are currencies. A currency is simply a medium of exchange and nothing more. If you allow me to pay you 3 goats for a car, goats are the currency. The only problem is that an economy cannot function on a currency that it too volatile, so it needs to be reasonably stable. It is not a hard requirement for a currency.

Crypto's volatility is nothing new. It's immature emerging stuff, of course it will fluctuate wildly. There is no problem with that. It has just had the for some unfortunate for others fortunate side-effect that the biggest ones have turned into speculative investments. That's also why it's an excellent place to make or lose a hell of a lot more money than the boring stock market. Just a much riskier game.

 

If you want to use it as an actual currency then do not use Bitcoin. Use a crypto that aims to be a useable day-to-day currency. Nano, Stellar and likely others that I don't follow are extremely cheap (or even free) to transfer and are fast as well. This ties in with the general ignorance (as in unawareness) that there is much more to crypto than just Bitcoin. Every crypto veteran will tell you that Bitcoin is basically useless as anything else than just an investment now.

Nobody is denying that either, but we have no factual numbers as to how much they have affected it.

You fail to realize that cryptocurrency uses alot more energy per person involved that is the biggest issue. If the number of cryptocurrency miners was the same as gamers then we would be in some serious trouble which is why everyone talks about it being an issue as if it does get that popular it will absolutely destroy the environment. Mind you alot of miners use their stuff 24/7 and have multiple gpus. 

[tikker]

29 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

You fail to realize that cryptocurrency uses alot more energy per person involved that is the biggest issue. If the number of cryptocurrency miners was the same as gamers then we would be in some serious trouble which is why everyone talks about it being an issue as if it does get that popular it will absolutely destroy the environment. Mind you alot of miners use their stuff 24/7 and have multiple gpus. 

I don't fail to realise that and while true. I can also say that there are much "better" uses for computers than gaming so we should get rid of it. It doesn't change anything about the fact that gaming is on a similar level as crypto mining regarding energy consumption. I have already adressed the 24/7 argument above. In a past post I did the same math and in the sense of energy consumption the combination gaming+mining when not gaming is the worst, then 24/7 mining, then 6-8 h/day gaming. If you want to argue from an energy perspective then that's fine, but it's so often pretended that gaming is so far away from mining while in reality it's on the same level. Now you can then start argueing about the subjective value of gaming vs crypto vs heating your backyard pool for all I care, but from an energy usage point of view they're equally damaging is all I'm saying. This is also why my standpoint is that this isn't a game of good vs bad, but a lesser of many evils. If we snapped our infinity gauntlet and mining disappeared this instant it wouldn't help us. It'd give us a tiny bit more time, but that's it as it's fundamentally about how we generate energy.

 

In my experience most people in crypto also completely agree that proof of work and especially Bitcoin has gotten out of hand. It's long known that it just doesn't scale which is why Ethereum is trying to move away from it. Many coins already employ or are built on proof of work (many coins don't even want to be a currency that users interact with for their bills so to speak either) and Ethereum is luckily working on moving towards PoS as well, which is good as one of the biggest.

[ravenshrike]

2 hours ago, decolon said:

2. Bitcoin is not a real currency. Currency in economics is defined as a medium that is a) a store of value and b) a medium of trade. Bitcoin accomplishes neither ( I cannot use bitcoin to pay bills or buy groceries at walmart, furthermore its price volatility means it can't store value bc $50 of bitcoin today could be worth $25 in a couple of hours). In this case, it literally does not meet the definition of what a currency is. Once again a factually correct statement.

3. "Too Volatile" and "A Bubble" - once again its price fluctuates wildly - literally the definition of volatile. You also concede that this is true, yet still claim anyone who says this is "ignorant" or "bullocks"

Sorry, but there is a difference between currency, and universal currency. Bitcoin has never claimed to be the latter making your point rather nonsensical. As for it being volatile, this is true, but is primarily caused by the stage of establishment it is in as well as govts changing policies to it. This doesn't magically make it not a currency, just not a reliable one. Unlike govt issued currencies however, its volatility is not mostly one way. 

[Brooksie359]

32 minutes ago, tikker said:

I don't fail to realise that and while true. I can also say that there are much "better" uses for computers than gaming so we should get rid of it. It doesn't change anything about the fact that gaming is on a similar level as crypto mining regarding energy consumption. I have already adressed the 24/7 argument above. In a past post I did the same math and in the sense of energy consumption the combination gaming+mining when not gaming is the worst, then 24/7 mining, then 6-8 h/day gaming. If you want to argue from an energy perspective then that's fine, but it's so often pretended that gaming is so far away from mining while in reality it's on the same level. Now you can then start argueing about the subjective value of gaming vs crypto vs heating your backyard pool for all I care, but from an energy usage point of view they're equally damaging is all I'm saying. This is also why my standpoint is that this isn't a game of good vs bad, but a lesser of many evils. If we snapped our infinity gauntlet and mining disappeared this instant it wouldn't help us. It'd give us a tiny bit more time, but that's it as it's fundamentally about how we generate energy.

 

In my experience most people in crypto also completely agree that proof of work and especially Bitcoin has gotten out of hand. It's long known that it just doesn't scale which is why Ethereum is trying to move away from it. Many coins already employ or are built on proof of work (many coins don't even want to be a currency that users interact with for their bills so to speak either) and Ethereum is luckily working on moving towards PoS as well, which is good as one of the biggest.

Yes it does change things. It makes cryptocurrency a huge problem in its current form and the fact that people are trying to write it off like it doesn't matter is completely ridiculous. Again you scale up the energy consumption based on people who participate now to how much it would be when a ton of people get into it and you can fairly easily see how massive an issue it would be. That's why gaming vs cryptocurrency is fundamentally different. One person can only realistically play on one computer at a time capping the amount of energy they would spend. The same cannot be said about mining and that is the issue. If each person mining didn't consume that much energy nobody would care but that isn't the case. 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, decolon said:

1. Cypto mining uses a lot of power -  this is a fact. Crypto mining in China used more energy than the entire country of Brazil. Gaming doesn't even come close because gamers don't keep their rigs drawing 200+ Watts of power 24/7. I don't see how stating this objective fact is ignorance.

 I recommend you read this old post I made, because I am fairly sure you just picked that statement out of thin air without doing any research into it:

On 3/16/2021 at 1:34 PM, LAwLz said:

Mining is estimated to use 128.77 TWh annually. 

 

 

PC gaming alone is estimated to use 75 billion kWh annually (aka 75 TWh).

Console gaming is estimated to be slightly bigger than PC gaming. A console uses less power when playing (around 175 watts) but typically uses a more power hungry display (TV vs computer monitor) so if PC gaming is 75 TWh then console gaming might be 40 TWh? Less per user but slightly more users.

So we could estimate that gaming uses 115 TWh of power every year, not including data centers which is too big of an unknown to count.

 

So if we count "gaming" as a country then it would be at least the 31th most power hungry country in the world (only counting PC and console gaming, not servers or mobile).

Mining would be the 28th most power hungry country in the world.

 

 

 

If the argument is that "it uses lots of power, so therefore it's bad" then gaming is bad too, to almost the same degree as mining (gaming is estimated to use about 90% of the power mining is estimated to use).

 

 

Also, the whole "it uses a lot of power" has only been true for a little while. Up until January 2021 it was estimated below the 100 TWh mark which meant gaming has been using far more power than mining has up until very recently.

 

I think it's a bit hypocritical that people have been participating doing something that has used 100 TWh annually, but then as soon as something else also starts using that much power it suddenly becomes an environmental issue.

 

 

I don't buy the whole "mining needs to be stopped because it uses a lot of power" argument, at least not from people who play video games. I think people who say that are hypocrits.

 

Gaming uses pretty much the same amount of power as mining. If you are against mining because of energy concerns then you should also be against gaming.

But like I said earlier, using a lot of power is not necessarily a bad thing. Hospitals use a lot of power too, but nobody is complaining about them (for good reasons as well). Using a lot of power is in and of itself not a bad thing. It depends on how much value you put on the thing it outputs.

In the case of hospitals, they use a lot of energy to save lives.

In the case of mining, they use a lot of energy to power the blockchain and transactions.

In the case of gaming, it uses a lot of energy to make people have fun.

 

 

3 hours ago, decolon said:

2. Bitcoin is not a real currency. Currency in economics is defined as a medium that is a) a store of value and b) a medium of trade. Bitcoin accomplishes neither ( I cannot use bitcoin to pay bills or buy groceries at walmart, furthermore its price volatility means it can't store value bc $50 of bitcoin today could be worth $25 in a couple of hours). In this case, it literally does not meet the definition of what a currency is. Once again a factually correct statement.

What do you mean bitcoin accomplishes neither?

You probably can't use Swedish kronor to pay your bills either but that does not mean the Swedish krona isn't a currency. I am trying to find where you got that definition of a currency from but I can't find it.

Investopedia defines currency as "a medium of exchange for goods and services". Since you can trade for example bitcoins for other goods, for example USD or in some rare cases pizzas etc, it is by definition a currency. Hell, Investopedia even mentions bitcoin as a type of currency.

The IRS also says that it is a currency. Here is a quote from the IRS that directly contradicts your statement:

Quote

A1.  Virtual currency is a digital representation of value, other than a representation of the U.S. dollar or a foreign currency (“real currency”), that functions as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. 

The IRS literally says on their website that bitcoin functions as a store of value and a medium of exchange. I have no idea how you can flat out say it doesn't fulfill either when the IRS says it does.

 

I think you should live as you preach a bit more:

"It seems like society has gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance"

[decolon]

41 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Sorry, but there is a difference between currency, and universal currency. Bitcoin has never claimed to be the latter making your point rather nonsensical. As for it being volatile, this is true, but is primarily caused by the stage of establishment it is in as well as govts changing policies to it. This doesn't magically make it not a currency, just not a reliable one. Unlike govt issued currencies however, its volatility is not mostly one way. 

There is literally a definition of what a currency is and bitcoin doesn't fall within the economics definition of what a currency is. In economics, currency has to be a medium of exchange, which crypto isn't as you cannot exchange it for goods and services except on the black market, thus making it not a currency. 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, decolon said:

3. "Too Volatile" and "A Bubble" - once again its price fluctuates wildly - literally the definition of volatile. You also concede that this is true, yet still claim anyone who says this is "ignorant" or "bullocks"

I wasn't trying to say bitcoin isn't volatile. I was saying that people who make arguments like "it's too volatile" (the keyword there being TOO) is missing the point of why people are interested.

Again, we saw the same thing with GameStop stock and people on this forum went crazy and had no problem with high volatility when that happened. I have seen the same people who lashes out over crypto currency being "too volatile" gladly cheer on and invest in gamestop stock.

That was my objection to the argument. That it being volatile is exactly what the people buying into bitcoin wants.

 

 

3 hours ago, decolon said:

4. Crypto miners have affected the supply of cards. Granted this is not 100% the reason for the retail shortage but is an exacerbating factor (Nvidia and AMD have both sold a bunch of their already low supply directly to mining groups, limiting the number available at retail)

[Citation Needed]

According to Nvidia themselves, they estimate that 2-6% of their revenue is from mining sales. That means the other 94-98% of their revenue is from non-mining sales.

 

 

You're making a lot of statements but so far have not posted a single source to back anything you say up with.

[decolon]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 I recommend you read this old post I made, because I am fairly sure you just picked that statement out of thin air without doing any research into it:

 

Gaming uses pretty much the same amount of power as mining. If you are against mining because of energy concerns then you should also be against gaming.

But like I said earlier, using a lot of power is not necessarily a bad thing. Hospitals use a lot of power too, but nobody is complaining about them (for good reasons as well). Using a lot of power is in and of itself not a bad thing. It depends on how much value you put on the thing it outputs.

In the case of hospitals, they use a lot of energy to save lives.

In the case of mining, they use a lot of energy to power the blockchain and transactions.

In the case of gaming, it uses a lot of energy to make people have fun.

 

 

What do you mean bitcoin accomplishes neither?

You probably can't use Swedish kronor to pay your bills either but that does not mean the Swedish krona isn't a currency. I am trying to find where you got that definition of a currency from but I can't find it.

Investopedia defines currency as "a medium of exchange for goods and services". Since you can trade for example bitcoins for other goods, for example USD or in some rare cases pizzas etc, it is by definition a currency. Hell, Investopedia even mentions bitcoin as a type of currency.

The IRS also says that it is a currency. Here is a quote from the IRS that directly contradicts your statement:

The IRS literally says on their website that bitcoin functions as a store of value and a medium of exchange. I have no idea how you can flat out say it doesn't fulfill either when the IRS says it does.

 

I think you should live as you preach a bit more:

"It seems like society has gotten to the point where stating something that is factually correct that people don't agree with = fake news or ignorance"

You can use swedish currency in sweden to pay bills. You can't use bitcoin in ANY country, unless you are tapping the black market. The IRS does not define what a currency is, you can't go to Walmart and pay with crypto just because the IRS says its a taxable currency

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, decolon said:

There is literally a definition of what a currency is and bitcoin doesn't fall within the economics definition of what a currency is. In economics, currency has to be a medium of exchange, which crypto isn't as you cannot exchange it for goods and services except on the black market, thus making it not a currency. 

I strongly recommend you read the quote from the IRS website I linked above. I don't know where you got the idea that crypto currency isn't a medium of exchange from, but neither the IRS nor I agree with you.

Hell, not even you agree with you. That's why you have to say things like "you can't use it... except in these circumstances but let's ignore those".

 

Also, you can trade crypto currency for goods and services. You can trade bitcoin for USD for example. USD is a type of goods. These are also some stores that accept bitcoin.

Have you heard of this small company called NordVPN? They make quite a bit of ads on Youtube. They also accept bitcoin as payment. Same goes for PiA which is a sponsor of LMG. Thus you can exchange bitcoin for services. If you ask me for a service and want to pay me with bitcoins I might accept that as well if I feel like setting up a wallet. 

[tikker]

  

25 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Yes it does change things. It makes cryptocurrency a huge problem in its current form and the fact that people are trying to write it off like it doesn't matter is completely ridiculous. Again you scale up the energy consumption based on people who participate now to how much it would be when a ton of people get into it and you can fairly easily see how massive an issue it would be. That's why gaming vs cryptocurrency is fundamentally different. One person can only realistically play on one computer at a time capping the amount of energy they would spend. The same cannot be said about mining and that is the issue. If each person mining didn't consume that much energy nobody would care but that isn't the case. 

Perhaps we are having a misunderstanding. I'm not writing it off at all. I fully agree that the energy consumption is a problem. What you cannot say is that 200 TWh of gaming isn't a problem but 200 TWh of mining is, because that is both 200 TWh of energy used. You also cannot say one is useless and the other isn't, because if one was truly useless it wouldn't have survived. I don't know how much energy "each person mining" consumes, because I don't think we have any reliable estimates of how much GPUs the average home miner has.

10 minutes ago, decolon said:

There is literally a definition of what a currency is and bitcoin doesn't fall within the economics definition of what a currency is. In economics, currency has to be a medium of exchange, which crypto isn't as you cannot exchange it for goods and services except on the black market, thus making it not a currency. 

This is 100% completely false. I can buy lots of things over here with crypto from food to PC parts.

[decolon]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I wasn't trying to say bitcoin isn't volatile. I was saying that people who make arguments like "it's too volatile" (the keyword there being TOO) is missing the point of why people are interested.

Again, we saw the same thing with GameStop stock and people on this forum went crazy and had no problem with high volatility when that happened. I have seen the same people who lashes out over crypto currency being "too volatile" gladly cheer on and invest in gamestop stock.

That was my objection to the argument. That it being volatile is exactly what the people buying into bitcoin wants.

 

 

[Citation Needed]

According to Nvidia themselves, they estimate that 2-6% of their revenue is from mining sales. That means the other 94-98% of their revenue is from non-mining sales.

 

 

You're making a lot of statements but so far have not posted a single source to back anything you say up with.

First of all, gamestop is one stock, and there are many arguing that it is too volatile or a bubble as well. Looking at the stock market as a whole, bloomberg has stated that bitcoin has 15x the volatility of the S&P 500, so it is more volatile than the stock market. Second, the article you posted is specifically about CMX GPUs, not GeForce which is what we are talking about (Nvidia sold a bunch of RTX gpus to miners before CMX came out and overall RTX supply was still low, as well as miners buying RTX gpus/laptops as well).

[decolon]

Just now, tikker said:

  

Perhaps we are having a misunderstanding. I'm not writing it off at all. I fully agree that the energy consumption is a problem. What you cannot say is that 200 TWh of gaming isn't a problem but 200 TWh of mining is, because that is both 200 TWh of energy used. You also cannot say one is useless and the other isn't, because if one was truly useless it wouldn't have survived. I don't know how much energy "each person mining" consumes, because I don't think we have any reliable estimates of how much GPUs the average home miner has.

This is 100% completely false. I can buy lots of thins over here with crypto from food to PC parts.

I have not seen one major retailer that has allowed crypto purchases, the whole point of a currency is that it is universal within a nation, which afaik no crypto is (certain retailers may allow it, but a majority doesn't). Many people try to argue that crypto is an actual currency (it is not, but there is an argument that it is an asset), but most have not studied actual economic theory where it is defined very specifically what is a currency and what isnt. Crypto is like gold, its an asset that can be very valuable depending on how people view it, but it isn't actual currency (in most places I cannot trade gold for groceries, but there can be some places in the world that will accept that trade).

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

You fail to realize that cryptocurrency uses alot more energy per person involved that is the biggest issue. If the number of cryptocurrency miners was the same as gamers then we would be in some serious trouble which is why everyone talks about it being an issue as if it does get that popular it will absolutely destroy the environment. Mind you alot of miners use their stuff 24/7 and have multiple gpus. 

Who is to say that a niche market that uses a lot per person is worse than a large market that uses a medium amount per user?

What matters in the end is total amount of power usage, and if we look at that then gaming and mining are about equal.

100TWh is 100TWh regardless of how many people use it.