Stopping crypto miners

[Jenshiye]

Since hardware and software are largely interchangeable and crypto mining is the same instructions being constantly repeated; can the manufacturers not integrate into one of their chips instructions to block these running?

 

Immediately, we think of, "Why should they do that? They will lose massive profits!"

Well, they can cripple this out of the chip, the same way Celerons are made from Pentiums, therefore they could satisfy and maintain two stable revenue streams, gamers and crypto miners.

 

This means they could sell, "Gamer cards," and, "Unlocked cards".

 

If the current trend continues, more gamers will migrate over to consoles and abandon PCs. When the crypto bubble bursts and pretty much everyone needs ASICs to remain competitive, the card manufacturers will be left out in the cold.

 

Anyway, I hope this shot in the dark finds its way to the right people, who can make a change.

[porina]

GPUs were sold, and have been sold for a long time, as a compute resource. It would be very difficult to cripple only mining without crippling other use cases for it, like various acceleration functions. And if they were to cripple it anyway, all the mining software writers will do is to change the code to do either the same thing differently, or something else that hasn't been crippled. Taken to an extreme, even gaming output may be a possible "proof of work" scenario for mining. There is no reasonable way to limit only mining short of making GPUs completely non-functional.

 

Besides, the recent depression seems to have relaxed some GPU pricing and availability. On nvidia side, 1070's and 1080's are only around 10% above pre-mining pricing where I am and in stock at that price. 1070Ti are silly money presumably as it is still new and shiny. 

[Jenshiye]

Doubtlessly it would only be a deterrent and hassle but people are lazy. Easier to buy the unlocked cards than mess about with the gaming ones.

[Guest]

Giving a company another way to add DLC to things would be a disaster. Sure, it would start out as a "for the people" move, but consumer acceptance of that would be abused almost immediately. We already deal with this with Intel and their locked chips and chipsets. I just could not get behind a solution like that.

[Jenshiye]

Well ... Nvidia ... I can agree.

AMD? I think they would be more responsible with something like this.

[Theguywhobea]

The idea of companies locking a type of computation out of their chips is really dumb, and would serve almost no purpose. There are thousands of different types of cryptocurrencies someone could mine, so how would locking out one change anything? This sounds like you're trying to apply a simple solution to a complex problem.

[Blademaster91]

31 minutes ago, Jenshiye said:

Doubtlessly it would only be a deterrent and hassle but people are lazy. Easier to buy the unlocked cards than mess about with the gaming ones.

We already have enough DLC in games,adding it to hardware would be a bad idea. Miners usually have the budget and would likely buy the unlocked cards anyway, I think it would just hurt the average gamer that buys 1-2 cards.

The only solution is Nvidia & AMD to make more mining cards that have higher compute rate with optimized power consumption, which miners didn't want because gaming cards have resale value.

[Jenshiye]

4 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

 There are thousands of different types of cryptocurrencies someone could mine, 

Heuristics.

[Guest]

That sounds like the kind of question a kid who thinks he is so smart thinks.

"Why don't airplanes have wind turbines, that way they can fly for eternity?"

The answer is that you don't have enough knowledge about the problem, and trying to find an answer too simple for it.

There is no way to block miners from buying their graphics cards, you can always reflash the bios to get rid of the software block, there is nothing you can do. There will always be a solution to your blocking.

 

[Jenshiye]

23 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

you can always reflash the bios to get rid of the software block,

I didn't say anything about an EPROM

[Methos]

Hardware locks and limits are a no-no. Prices are seriously dropping as we speak so maybe you missed the outrage train.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jenshiye said:

I didn't say anything about an EPROM

What ever you think you can do there is always a way around it, also there is no way to block mining on GPUS, as the underlying calculations are the same as for gaming.

[Mick Naughty]

Or you could just let it play it’s course. No one was crying this time last year. No reason to stop anything really. 

[Jenshiye]

30 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

What ever you think you can do there is always a way around it, also there is no way to block mining on GPUS, as the underlying calculations are the same as for gaming.

Do the games send encrypted data back to the PC? 

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Jenshiye said:

Do the games send encrypted data back to the PC? 

Still ways around that.

Anyways mining was also a big thing in 2014, but no one cried back then.

[Jenshiye]

32 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Still ways around that.

Anyways mining was also a big thing in 2014, but no one cried back then.

Yes, as long as the device is in the hands of the user or there is a network connection there is away around things.

The more difficult you make it or the hassle it is to get around it, the fewer people that will do it.

 

That leaves the unlocked cards. Much easier to get and use them for these purposes.

 

2014 wasn't such a complete stock void as this has been. 

 

P.S. *Hands you a bucket of tears to drink* 

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Jenshiye said:

Yes, as long as the device is in the hands of the user or there is a network connection there is away around things.

The more difficult you make it or the hassle it is to get around it, the fewer people that will do it.

 

That leaves the unlocked cards. Much easier to get and use them for these purposes.

 

2014 wasn't such a complete stock void as this has been. 

 

P.S. *Hands you a bucket of tears to drink* 

If it is such a great idea why does noone use it???

P.S. *it isn't a good idea, or even a bad one, it is just a stupid idea on so many levels* also stop with that roleplaying

[Computernaut]

Crypo-mining is basically a way to make "free" money, as long as it's legal and they can, people will do it. If counterfeiting was legal people would do it, regardless of the price of the equipment. At some point the crypo-mining industry will crash and the market will be flooded with second-hand GPUs, that's not to say it won't pick itself back up again but it will be dead for at least a little while...

 

 

...I think.

[Jenshiye]

31 minutes ago, Computernaut said:

Crypo-mining is basically a way to make "free" money, as long as it's legal and they can, people will do it. If counterfeiting was legal people would do it, regardless of the price of the equipment. At some point the crypo-mining industry will crash and the market will be flooded with second-hand GPUs, that's not to say it won't pick itself back up again but it will be dead for at least a little while...

 

...I think.

Money, whether it is crypto or otherwise, is just a belief system.

[Computernaut]

59 minutes ago, Jenshiye said:

Money, whether it is crypto or otherwise, is just a belief system.

I'm choosing not to debate that with you.

[Jenshiye]

23 hours ago, Computernaut said:

I'm choosing not to debate that with you.

So, that weird piece of paper, bit of metal or numbers in a database, the value of which fluctuates all the time ... that value isn't there simply because we believe in it?

[Computernaut]

30 minutes ago, Jenshiye said:

So, that weird piece of paper, bit of metal or numbers in a database, the value of which fluctuates all the time ... that value isn't there simply because we believe in it?

Money is tool design to allow people to "trade" seamlessly, if you research the history the paper money you will find that bills where originally easy-to-use representations of real gold the government had locked up in the national treasury.

[Mick Naughty]

Currency is currency. Cant tell the difference when its in my bank account.  

[Jenshiye]

17 hours ago, Mick Naughty said:

Currency is currency. Cant tell the difference when its in my bank account.  

... and your bank manager in interchangeable with the an IT manager.

The difference is believing that the bank's database, those binary figures, has that value over the database of X-company, education institution, military base and so forth.

 

I guess, this is the logic someone followed to the point of creating crypto currency. (It is also the logic behind Farcebook's share price and how it is linked to belief in its value).

[Mick Naughty]

3 hours ago, Jenshiye said:

... and your bank manager in interchangeable with the an IT manager.

The difference is believing that the bank's database, those binary figures, has that value over the database of X-company, education institution, military base and so forth.

 

I guess, this is the logic someone followed to the point of creating crypto currency. (It is also the logic behind Farcebook's share price and how it is linked to belief in its value).

Well if go to an atm and withdraw money, could you tell me which bills I mined and which I didn’t? Would appear it is interchangeable.