Question Jen Sung makes questionable decision? [RUMOR] NVidia tries to disable GPU mining?

[VirtualLarry]

So now, not only is Nvidia's chairman selling GPUs that can be used for Compute (*formerly called GPGPU - "General Purpose"), he's rum0ored to be attempting to effectively regulate WHAT PROGRAMS are ALLOWED to be run on the GPUs that they mfg?

Imaging if Intel decided to decree, that their CPUs, could no longer be used for searching for prime numbers.

This whole idea is a slippery slope that I am NOT willing to go down.

And to think, this is all just an (alleged) stupid band-aid, over their mfg and supply-chain issues.

If Nvidia could effectively supply all of their GPU markets with product, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Edit: If this rumor turns out to be true, expect class-action lawsuits against NVidia, much like what happened to Sony with the PS3 losing functionality (running Linux) after people purchased them.

Now, ALL NVIDIA RETAILERS will be forced to post a prominent disclaimer of the software that is NOT ALLOWED to be run on these GPUs, or they will get sued as well.

Update:
NVidia to phase out all existing Ampere PCI device-ids, phase in EtH mining "block" across ALL new Ampere line-up!

 

[Glo.]

NVM.

 

[Mopetar]

What is the value of the connection between different technologies? Between people?

That's asking about the value of something intangible. It's a bit like asking how much Coca Cola's brand recognition is worth or trying to quantify the value of writing. In some cases it's easier to quantify an exact value because someone can purchase distribution rights, etc. associated with that intangible good. In this case, it really isn't something that can be bought and sold, at least not in its totality.

If you wanted a better answer, instead of something abstract like "it's priceless", the best I could give you is to total up the value of all of the organizations that work toward realizing or enabling that idea. We all pay some amount of money to an ISP for this connectivity or we purchase hardware (modems, ethernet cables, wireless routers, etc.) that enable its use, and those are all quantifiable. That's what people are willing to pay for the connectivity so it at least gives us a good lower bound.

Another possible way to approach an answer is to look at wealth generated as a consequence of that idea. On one hand we could calculate the value of industrialization by adding up the cost of all the factories, machines, etc., but you could make an argument that the value lies not just in the cost alone, but what has been enabled as a result. All of the profit that someone can derive as a result of those connections existing is some potential value that could have been charged by the people selling the machines, etc. You can get yourself into a bit of trouble with this because you can argue that agriculture is worth just about all of human productivity because almost none of modern society would be possible without it.

However, that's a far more difficult problem because it becomes difficult to truly separate out all of those different numbers and invites a lot of argument over whether some of them should be included or not. Many companies are the result of several intangible ideas being realized and it's going to be difficult to attribute a percentage each is responsible for. But you could look at companies like Facebook that can only exist in large part due to this connection and include their worth (or some part of it) as a part of the calculation as well.

One can also look at the value of what newer technologies replaced as well, particularly if they're less expensive than existing solutions. For example, most people book flights online through a website. Previously this was done over the phone or through a travel agent. While those things haven't gone away entirely, they've largely been replaced just as computers largely replaced switchboard operators, which at one time required a lot of human labor.

I'm not going to sit down and try to come up with an exact dollar amount, but I do think that adequately explains how to go about quantifying the value of the Internet Protocol in the way that you've defined it. The companies that build the hardware necessary to support that connection are collectively worth some hundreds of billions of dollars, if not well into the trillions alone. Throw everything else it enables on top of that or other jobs that can only exist because these connections are possible, and I would think it's well into the tens of trillions of dollars.

If this question is in relation to BitCoin I don't think it's a very good argument to attack the idea of the worth of BitCoin or any other cryptocurrency. First, even though it is a digital currency, the design is such that for any coin (or fraction of one) that exists, it has exactly one owner. Since these can be exchanged, the value is whatever the current owners of those coins can sell them for, same as any physical coins. You can calculate the overall value by looking at the current going rate of exchange on the market and multiplying that by the number of coins that exist, similar to how the value of a company is derived from the sale price of stock. Obviously that's not perfect since trying to sell all of a company's stock or all of a currencies coins at one time is going to adjust the value, but it's not just as simple as adding up the book value of all of the company's physical assets either.

I suppose it's still a simple question, but I don't think it's one that has a simple answer.

 

[Glo.]

That's asking about the value of something intangible. It's a bit like asking how much Coca Cola's brand recognition is worth or trying to quantify the value of writing. In some cases it's easier to quantify an exact value because someone can purchase distribution rights, etc. associated with that intangible good. In this case, it really isn't something that can be bought and sold, at least not in its totality.

It is impossible to quantify value of something abstract.

Which is the exact reason why Bitcoin's value is growing.

In essence, Blockchain is making Internet, itself, a Store of Value, and using it, literally, as a currency.

Blockchain quantifies value of Internet in a economical, quantifiable terms.

But since we still use FIAT currencies, as standard, we still do not look at Cryptocurrencies as something viable.

 

[Mopetar]

It is impossible to quantify value of something abstract.

Which is the exact reason why Bitcoin's value is growing.

In essence, Blockchain is making Internet, itself, a Store of Value, and using it, literally, as a currency.

Blockchain quantifies value of Internet in a economical, quantifiable terms.

But since we still use FIAT currencies, as standard, we still do not look at Cryptocurrencies as something viable.

The publishing rights to a Stephen King novel is an abstraction and yet the value of that is quantified every time he and a publisher sign a deal. Deals like that are often made even before a single word of the novel has even been written. Similarly, things like patents (or just the rights to use one) are bought and sold all the time, Occasionally companies even buy existing companies in part so that they can sell their own products under that existing brand which has existing brand recognition. Abstractions aren't impossible to quantify the value of, just not necessarily as easy to quantify as some physical good.

The very fact that someone buys a BitCoin or exchanges it for something else immediately quantifies its value. If you want to broadly ask how valuable is cryptocurrency as a concept then that's a question which doesn't have a simple answer. It depends on a lot of things, but if you look at it as a decentralized form of banking you could say it's at least worth whatever the banking system costs to operate assuming that it could replace it or at least part of the work they do.

Bitcoin's value is increasing in part because unlike every other currency in existence it has a limited to how much of it can exist. That immediately means that it gains value relative to any other currency over the long term. It also gains value in part as more people accept it or transactions in it because it can be used more easily as a medium of exchange. It also gains value if actual government currencies become unstable or otherwise restrictive. Fiat currencies are merely more convenient to use than trying to tie a currency to precious metals, but they don't make a cryptocurrency any more or less viable. Obviously governments don't like these new currencies because they have less or no control over them.

 

[Glo.]

The very fact that someone buys a BitCoin or exchanges it for something else immediately quantifies its value. If you want to broadly ask how valuable is cryptocurrency as a concept then that's a question which doesn't have a simple answer. It depends on a lot of things, but if you look at it as a decentralized form of banking you could say it's at least worth whatever the banking system costs to operate assuming that it could replace it or at least part of the work they do.

Blockchain is not decentralized form of banking.

The network is a bank, Store of Value, and Currency, all at the same time. The network is alleviating any form of "middle-man" that we have created as financial institution.

The network, itself, becomes that financial institution.

The problem is, that we still look at Blockchain from "our" economic Axioms, when in order for Blockchain based economy to work, every, single one Axiom, every, single economical definition has to be turned around by 180 degrees.

For example. You can earn by creating value, and increasing the value of the currency that you use, through your actions. Not just by gaining resources.

 

[zir_blazer]

What makes crypto worse:
-The dollar is backed by the US which has a huge mostly legal economy allowing hundreds of millions to live their lives. The main backers of crypto (i.e. those that really need it) are organised crime. I don't want to be helping organised crime to clean their money and sell their guns/drugs/slaves/whatever, nor is it a good long term backer as they'll switch if something better comes along.

I'm actually surprised than the US dollar didn't had a Nigerian type hyperinflation or a German one like after World War I. Seems like its widespread use worldwide is just too much critical mass, getting it right on the "too big to fall" halo segment (Until it does fall, at the moment when chaos ensures). Just consider than during the last 4 years you had a solid 30% of that country backing a wannabe dictator representing a faction that was shouting all over the place how they wanted a civil war and denying the latest election results, as if it was some type of banana republic. Why would I consider than a potentially unstable country as the USA backs the US dollar as a reassurance of anything? If wasn't because the rest of the world forces me to use it as an international standard, I would consider that the value of the US dollar is worth as much as a junk bond from a third world country.
BTW, didn't the current crypto boom began right around the January 6 Capitol Riots? That MAY tell you something. The rest of the world is losing trust in the US dollar.

Fiat currencies are merely more convenient to use than trying to tie a currency to precious metals, but they don't make a cryptocurrency any more or less viable.

Actually, at some point currencies used to be directly convertible in gold. It was the Bretton Woods system.
And lets not get me started on how having gold in USA was illegal and could be seized by the goverment with the Executive Order 6102. Is amazing because I discuss often with people saying that only communist goverments seize private citizens assets, heh.

A single party may arbitrarily control whenever something is legal or not, or raise or lower prices. Cryptocurrencies are perfect as the only real -almost- unregulated free market currencies, they have a certain price because supply and demand decided so. If it reached a critical mass, they may be as trusted as the US dollar itself, cause as I stated, it has a sort of de facto value as an international standard, and didn't lost such status even after not being convertible in gold anymore, and even right now when the meaning of being US backed had become a joke.

 

[Mopetar]

Blockchain is not decentralized form of banking.

It doesn't need to be decentralized. You could use the technology to create a private ledger that only devices you control are capable of recording to if you wanted, since the value it creates is merely that of having records that would be difficult to alter due to the mathematics of how they're constructed, though a non-decentralized system certainly makes that easier. Part of the appeal of most crypto currencies is that there isn't a central authority controlling any transactions. Anyone who wants to participate in the peer network for that currency can help manage the transactions and record yours to the blockchain. In that sense a blockchain could replace traditional financial institutions because they can provide the same type of services. A truck isn't a type of horse, but the invention of the automobile certainly reduced the use of horses considerably.

For example. You can earn by creating value, and increasing the value of the currency that you use, through your actions. Not just by gaining resources.

That's hardly something new. Most wealth creation in modern economies is done through adding or creating value. If I take some clay and mold it into a pot, I've created value assuming someone will pay me more for the pot than the raw materials. If someone writes new software they've created value assuming they can get someone to buy it. Anyone who works in a service industry creates value performing their services. At no point are resources gained when a doctor performs a medical procedure, and yet the work is highly valuable. By historical standards, very few people employ their labor in the creation of resources and only through industrialization and automation is much of what resources we gain actually possible.

Many cryptocurrencies work by rewarding new currency to the people who perform the work of recoding transaction data to a blockchain. This is different from traditional institutions which may require a percentage of the amount exchanged as a service fee, or will let you have free transactions if you agree to let the institution loan out your money so that they can profit from the interest gained by doing so. You could probably design a cryptocurrency that works better in the older models, but those require some degree of centralization, or at least more than something like BitCoin.

However, I don't think that cryptocurrencies require rethinking much of anything or flip anything on its head. Unless governments will accept payment of taxes in them, government issued fiat currencies will continue to exist. Even if those all disappeared entirely or were replaced by some government-backed form of cryptocurrencies, absolutely nothing about the underlying nature of economies changes. At most you move some labor that was previously performed by banks or other financial institutions to a more democratized system that anyone can participate in, much like Uber allows more people to sell transportation than just city cab drivers or similar services.

I think that people who believe cryptocurrencies will change everything or flip the world upside down are just as silly as people who think they're a complete waste or some kind of Ponzi scheme. Anything people are doing using cryptocurrencies was done before the creation of BitCoin or even the conceptualization of the underlying technologies (e.g., blockchain) that go into them. It's just something new that people don't really have a good understanding of because a lot of it is rather complex or involves other technologies that are fairly complex.

 

[Mopetar]

Actually, at some point currencies used to be directly convertible in gold. It was the Bretton Woods system.
And lets not get me started on how having gold in USA was illegal and could be seized by the goverment with the Executive Order 6102. Is amazing because I discuss often with people saying that only communist goverments seize private citizens assets, heh.

Stupidity of the government aside, gold isn't different than any other form of currency. The people who typically want to go back to a gold standard cite a resilience against inflation (which is really only true because there's a finite amount of gold in the ground and a limit to how quickly we could dig it up) and that governments can't just devalue their currencies by printing more of it. The U.S. government (and most others) seize private property all the time. The police will gladly seize anything they believe was used to facilitate a crime and even municipal governments will seize land. The communists would probably just tell you it was never your property to begin with, but their economic system produced so little wealth anyways that there wasn't much to seize after taking what was there to begin with.

Cryptocurrencies would probably make a good international standard though, precisely for a lot of the reasons you point out. The US dollar losing that designation wouldn't hurt as much as some people like to think. Plenty of other countries seem to get along fine without being an international standard and if people want to do business with those countries to buy goods, they typically need to buy some of the local currency first. A cryptocurrency would make a good International medium of exchange because no single country controls it, which also limits the ability of any country to use their currency as a means of political control.

 

[Glo.]

That's hardly something new. Most wealth creation in modern economies is done through adding or creating value. If I take some clay and mold it into a pot, I've created value assuming someone will pay me more for the pot than the raw materials. If someone writes new software they've created value assuming they can get someone to buy it. Anyone who works in a service industry creates value performing their services. At no point are resources gained when a doctor performs a medical procedure, and yet the work is highly valuable. By historical standards, very few people employ their labor in the creation of resources and only through industrialization and automation is much of what resources we gain actually possible.

Current economy is based on maximizing the profit. Cut the costs down as much as possible.

In blockchain based economy how you create value? By paying your emplyees more, by developing more environmentally friendly manufacturing processes, by planting trees, by ACTUALLY healing people not by extinguishing their disease symptoms, by making more efficient technology, etc. Contributing, actually contributing value.

This is how you create value in blockchain based economy. Your actions mean much more than your the amount of your wealth accumulated.

 

[Mopetar]

Current economy is based on maximizing the profit. Cut the costs down as much as possible.

In blockchain based economy how you create value? By paying your emplyees more, by developing more environmentally friendly manufacturing processes, by planting trees, by ACTUALLY healing people not by extinguishing their disease symptoms, by making more efficient technology, etc. Contributing, actually contributing value.

This is how you create value in blockchain based economy. Your actions mean much more than your the amount of your wealth accumulated.

I think you really need to explain exactly how anything changes or why you believe what you're writing. It makes no sense at all to me. Crypto currencies aren't going to change human nature or somehow create a world where planting trees is any more valuable than it is now.

You seem to suggest that making more efficient technology isn't something that's been happening for well over a century or that it's a unique feature of whatever a "blockchain-based economy" is supposed to be. You don't think that developing more efficient technology is a way to cut costs and maximize profit?

 

[BFG10K]

GPU mining causing power outages in Iran: https://videocardz.com/newz/gpu-mining-farms-are-causing-power-outages-in-iran

14 mining farms are consuming the same power as 100,000 citizens. It's funny how we're repeatedly told the power-sucking is a myth.

Guys, guys, it's totally fine all those regular people are experiencing black-outs. They need to make way for those brave virtuous miners who are forging a better world for all of us!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Learn how to mine!

 

[VirtualLarry]

14 mining farms are consuming the same power as 100,000 citizens. It's funny how we're repeatedly told the power-sucking is a myth.

This, my friends, is a failure of the Free Market.

Isn't Capitalism, supposed to be the "most efficient" method, for allocation of resources among society, and therefore, shouldn't energy costs be according to resource scarcity? Chances are, energy prices in this region are subsidized, and thus, you effectively end up with the "tragedy of the commons" happening with electric power.

Unsurprising, and hardly attributable to miners, although they do consume electricity.

What if it were a bunch of arc-welding shops moving in instead? If that were the more profitable thing?

What other form of wealth-producing industry, that itself, consumes no water, and produces effectively no pollutants, save for CO2 emissions during power production? Compare and contrast that to nearly any other industry.

PS. Electric power can be produced "Renewably".

But sure, BFG10K, let's demonize those home miners that want to make a buck on their gaming rigs to pay for itself, with causing blackouts in Iran. Totally comparable.

 

[Mopetar]

What did anyone expect when you subsidize energy costs in a country where it's already cheap due to their natural resources?

The same thing has happened U.S. towns that set electricity prices below market rates. People rented property there and started running a bunch of mining rigs.

 

[NTMBK]

Why is this thread not in P&N?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why is this thread not in P&N?

Because it's about GPUs, and NVidia-related decisions. Notwithstanding that BFG10K injected something about "Iran" into the thread.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Iran tries to do something good for it's people and pos mining farms ruin it. Cryptocurrency is cancer.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Iran tries to do something good for it's people and pos mining farms ruin it. Ethereum is cancer.

"The Iranian gov't tries to make a resource available under market rates (subsidies aka socialism), and capitalists step in and exploit that resource price arbitrage opportunity to make a profit. F@@@ capitalists, why do they kep invading Iran's socialist utopia."

 

[Mopetar]

Iran tries to do something good for it's people and pos mining farms ruin it. Cryptocurrency is cancer.

All that cheap electricity is coming from oil production. By subsidizing it they're only encouraging overcompensation of fossil fuels. Maybe it seems good in the short term, but the long term effects of climate change could be devastating.

 

[VirtualLarry]

[GraphicallyChallenged]

In this vid, he actually calls for Nvidia to "do something" and talks about disabling mining.

 

[Ajay]

Because it's about GPUs, and NVidia-related decisions. Notwithstanding that BFG10K injected something about "Iran" into the thread.

No it's not. It's a thread about people who are butt hurt because a company may take away a source of income to some folks vs those who are butt hurt about not being able to buy nice toys. So it should be in P&N or, at least, ATOT.

 

[MrTeal]

What the hell is that? I couldn't make it through the first 5 seconds of that video.

 

[gdansk]

I'm not sure it's even novel. Nvidia and other companies have limited what you can run on their hardware in drivers and in other ways for years. How would they enforce it in this case though? Disable CUDA/Vulkan Compute/OpenCL/etc? Not gonna happen

 

[ultimatebob]

Honestly, I would support AMD or Nvidia releasing a "pure gaming" edition of their card that shuts down if detects that you're trying to use the card for mining. It might give gamers a shot of picking up a card at retail.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Proof of Work (PoW) is generally wasteful since existing algorithms have no practical way to limit overall hashpower. Mining was never really a problem when the farms were small and the power usage was relatively low. Running some homebrew rigs cobbled together from used Hawaii cards (and a Pitcairn, lol) on AM2/AM2+ board with 1000W+ power supplies was also a hoot. Realistically-speaking, though, the time has come for PoW to die. At least Ethereum is moving to Proof of Stake (PoS), so those of you cursing ETH's name can calm down a little.

The forward-thinking thing for nVidia to do would be to encourage hash-limited PoW or a transition to PoS in as many crypto projects as possible. Limiting the GPGPU functionality of their consumer video cards seems undesirable and presages a cat-and-mouse game in which developers find ways to defeat NV's curbs on mining software.