Nvidia, the company behind various graphics cards, explains that cryptocurrencies have not brought anything good. Nvidia has always been at odds with cryptocurrencies and miners.
Many gamers are opponents of cryptocurrencies and the associated mining. For many, they are a symbol of the limited available and far too expensive hardware in recent years. Closely followed by scalpers who also wanted to profit from the situation. And could even afford a living from scalping.
“I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity.”
Who is speaking? Michael Kagan is Chief Technology Officer at Nvidia and explained in an interview with the British magazine “The Guardian” that AI applications are more useful and meaningful than cryptocurrencies. He supports this with the limited value of using computing power for mining cryptocurrencies.
What did he say?
This whole crypto stuff needed parallel processing, and [Nvidia] is the best, so people just programmed it for that purpose. They bought a lot of stuff, and then it eventually collapsed because it brings nothing useful to society. AI does.
I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity. You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don’t divert the company to support whatever it is.
This may surprise some, as Nvidia had benefited significantly from the mining boom. Thousands of Nvidia graphics cards ended up in the systems of many miners to mine digital currencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin. Because Nvidia’s graphics cards are particularly worthwhile – to the dismay of all gamers who couldn’t buy a graphics card.
Nvidia has never had a good relationship with cryptocurrencies
The company Nvidia has never had particularly good relations with cryptocurrencies. After miners bought thousands of Nvidia graphics cards, driving up the prices, Nvidia distributed an update to limit mining significantly. But many miners just laughed at Nvidia’s crypto restriction.
Additionally, a mining graphics card, so-called LHR GPUs, was introduced so that the remaining models would go to gamers. However, hardware was still only available to a limited extent.
Meanwhile, the situation for gamers has significantly improved again. Because the value of Bitcoin and Ethereum has fallen sharply compared to 2021. Now miners are even selling their used graphics cards:
