AMD suggests profitable mining on Threadripper CPU

[Phentos]

Nice news considering I'm saving up for a potential refresh TR rig towards the end of the year... ^/s

[Sniperfox47]

On 02/02/2018 at 11:55 AM, Energycore said:

I'm hoping we can get cryptos that don't need all this power to be mined though, cuz it's so wasteful to use this much power for our economy. I dare say we're spending more money mining these coins than the Gold Rush pioneers spent on gold mine enterprises (this alone defeats the argument of "bitcoin doesn't cost anything", it costs power, and massive amounts thereof).

Proof of Stake is the future! Just a couple more years out on the Etherium side at this point. All hail the PoS overlords

[Drak3]

12 hours ago, samcool55 said:

Gold is a perfect example for this. It has absolutely no use and should be basically worthless but because everyone thinks it's worth a lot and are prepared to pay a lot of it, it is actually worth a lot. Even tho it's pretty useless stuff.

Gold WAS a good example. Now, it has value beyond belief of value, it's fairly important in electronics manufacturing.

[leadeater]

13 hours ago, samcool55 said:

Gold is a perfect example for this. It has absolutely no use and should be basically worthless but because everyone thinks it's worth a lot and are prepared to pay a lot of it, it is actually worth a lot. Even tho it's pretty useless stuff.

Diamonds used in jewellery is a really interesting one. Diamonds were actually essentially worthless not that long ago then, I forgetting the persons name, brought up all the diamond mines and supply network then restricted everything. After doing that started a huge advertising campaign, you've probably heard it: "Diamonds are forever" and "Diamonds are a girl's best friend". This person was a marketing genius, just look at the value over time lol.

 

 

Rough mined diamonds are basically useless for anything except jewellery if you actually consider that as a real use, industrial diamonds are grown not mined and are actually quite different.

 

Edit:

Quote

N. W. Ayer & Son, the advertising firm retained by De Beers in the mid-20th century, succeeded in reviving the American diamond market. And the firm created new markets in countries where no diamond tradition had existed before. N. W. Ayer's marketing included product placement, advertising focused on the diamond product itself rather than the De Beers brand, and associations with celebrities and royalty. Without advertising the De Beers brand, De Beers was advertising its competitors' diamond products as well,[71] but this was not a concern as De Beers dominated the diamond market throughout the 20th century. De Beers' market share dipped temporarily to 2nd place in the global market below Alrosa in the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2008, down to less than 29% in terms of carats mined, rather than sold.[72] The campaign lasted for decades but was effectively discontinued by early 2011. De Beers still advertises diamonds, but the advertising now mostly promotes its own brands, or licensed product lines, rather than completely "generic" diamond products.[72] The campaign was perhaps best captured by the slogan "a diamond is forever".[7] This slogan is now being used by De Beers Diamond Jewelers,[73] a jewelry firm which is a 50%/50% joint venture between the De Beers mining company and LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond#Gem-grade_diamonds

[Ryujin2003]

I think we are doomed. I've seen a trend in the past two days suggesting CPU shortages as miners switch to (or adopt) CPU mining. Many suggesting shortage of CPU supplies soon. I don't think it'll happen, but it's enough speculation to  cause a rise in process.