Surge In Litecoin Mining Leads To Graphics Card Shortage 213
New submitter Kenseilon writes "Extremetech reports that the recent price hike of Litecoins has triggered yet another arms race for the *coinminers out there, leading to a shortage of AMD graphics cards. While Bitcoin mining is quickly becoming unfeasible for GPU rigs with general purpose graphics cards, there are several alternative currencies with opportunities. The primary candidate is now Litecoin, which has the aim of 'being silver if Bitcoin is gold' Swedish Tech site Sweclockers also reports [in Swedish] that GPU manufacturer Club3D have told them that miners are becoming a new important group of potential customers. However, concerns are being raised that this is a temporary boom that may hurt AMD in the long run, since gamers, their core consumer group, may not be able to acquire the cards and instead opt for Nvidia."
Ummm Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
All my usual retailers have stock, this is just an article to pump up litecoin activity and interest.
It isn't silver to BTC gold, it offers no great advantages over BTC hat can't be integrated into the bitcoin protocol if deamed worthy and you cant buy anything with it except other crypto-currencies.
This article is spam at best , a pump and dump endorsement at worst.
Don't worry (Score:3, Insightful)
When the bubble bursts, cheap cards will be available in large numbers. And the bubble will burst, even Bitcoin is subject to economic rules and historically demonstrated facts. Its very volatility shows that its value has no basis in reality.
Re:An Honest Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. Every bubble is built on suckers like you, always trying to convince themselves the scam is real. Bitcoin does not even have the value the current used to create it had, as that cannot be recovered.
Make mining useful (Score:5, Insightful)
When will a *coin virtual currency make calculations useful for science? I can't help but feel this whole thing is total a waste of energy.
Re:An Honest Question (Score:5, Insightful)
I can easily envision three ways in which it could become worthless:
1. A mathematical weakness in the protocol is found allowing for effective fraud. Not super-fast mining, but something like coin duplication or impersonation.
2. A systematic crackdown by one or more major governments renders it impractical to openly accept bitcoins as payment. Right now, governments tolerate bitcoin because it's not really a force of any note. If it really took off? You can count on them to ban bitcoin in commercial operations. Later on, they will declare that posesssion of bitcoins is a sign of intent to purchase drugs or commit fraud, much in the same way that carrying around $10,000 in a briefcase might get you an interview with police today. Even if the crackdown was only half-effective, the fear would lead to a collapse in value - those $1000 coins would be selling for $5 each.
3. Confidence crash. Bitcoin currently has value not so much because it can be spent (There isn't a great deal you can buy with it) as it does because of speculation. That's a dangerous situation - it's a perfect bubble. If the price should drop, even a little, then a lot of people are going to fear a decline and start selling off their coins - which will cause exactly the decline they fear. It's happened before many times. Ask anyone who's traded Noxcium in EVE.
Re:To the not-so-rich ... (Score:5, Insightful)
After the gold rush was over, there was still plenty of money to be made selling picks, shovels and mules to the prospectors.
Re:Lol@fads. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why I think Bitcoin will collapse. Or perhaps, "should". There are quite a few with high percentage of all the money, one with at least 20%.
Sooner or later some of them are going to dump. Getting $1'000'000 for "nothing" is very tempting.
Later, much later, the gullible are going to understand they were ripped of, several times. Then, again it might be so that they never understand as they see Bitcoin as "mathematically proven" money missing the problems entirely.
I hope you have luck. I just cannot do the same for ethical & moral reasons. Damn, parents!
Re:Lol@fads. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that's the right attitude to have. You know it's a bunch of people buying an investment (not a currency), hoping it will appreciate so that they can cash out once it hits a high enough price point.
Bitcoin/Litecoin is an (irrational) investment, not a currency.
Re:ReFlash (Score:5, Insightful)