AMD Prepping Radeon RX Graphics Card Designed Specifically for Cryptomining

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AMD is no longer coy about the fact that its Radeon graphics cards perform well in the cryptomining market. As spotted by Phoronix’s Michael Larabel, recent Linux patches include references to an all-new “navi 10 blockchain” GPU that is clearly meant for mining purposes.



While the patches do not offer any insight into the card’s specifications, they do include changes that indicate a lack of display support.



“From the AMDGPU Linux kernel driver perspective, the only difference from the existing Navi 10 GPU support is these patches disable the Display Core Next (DCN) and Video Core Next (VCN) support,” Larabel noted.



The timing of these patches also suggests that the card may not be released until next year.



“The few patches will likely not be mainlined until Linux 5.11...
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stinger608 said:
Wow, is mining still a thing? I thought that kind of went on the way side
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Unfortunately, yes. You just don't hear about it much anymore since video card mining is confined to 1 or 2 algorithms these days due to the difficulty spike in others, and Bitcoin has not neared it's peak of $20k as it did a couple years ago. It looks like Bitcoin is getting ready for another large peak, though. It's gone up $1,500 in just the last week, now sitting at about $13k. It will be hilarious to watch if normies try to get in once the price peaks again.
 
Mining alt coins is still a thing. While not as profitable as BTC was back in the early days; that could easily change quickly. Those who started before the BTC spike were the ones who benefited the most (as long as they held onto their earnings). That time, is now with alt coins, assuming they'll see a similar fate as BTC did.
 
stinger608 said:
Wow, is mining still a thing? I thought that kind of went on the way side
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Server rack busy with it in the basement year round, office machines keep the office hot in the winter..

MadMummy76 said:
Oh joy, we can all waste resources to produce nothing of worth, again!
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It's only worth what people are willing to pay...

LeRoy_Blanchard said:
Mining alt coins is still a thing. While not as profitable as BTC was back in the early days; that could easily change quickly. Those who started before the BTC spike were the ones who benefited the most (as long as they held onto their earnings). That time, is now with alt coins, assuming they'll see a similar fate as BTC did.
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Direct BTC mining with GPUs has not been worth it since around 2013-2014. Still plenty of alt coins to mine and convert if BTC is what you want to HODL.
 
MadMummy76 said:
I didn't mean monetary worth. I meant actual worth. You know, providing a service, or goods.
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You could argue it's a banking service. Crypto generally provides a means to determine who has the rights to its units that's validated through a distributed validation process as opposed to the centralized system of money that we generally use today. By your argument, banks, the federal reserve, cash, payment processing businesses, etc., also do not have "actual" worth. 🙃
 
David_Schroth said:
You could argue it's a banking service. Crypto generally provides a means to determine who has the rights to its units that's validated through a distributed validation process as opposed to the centralized system of money that we generally use today. By your argument, banks, the federal reserve, cash, payment processing businesses, etc., also do not have "actual" worth. 🙃
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You're correct. Cash has no intrinsic worth or value. It's all based on what is backing up the cash. In the case of the US dollar it's backed up by the US economy and to a smaller extent the US government.

Crypto isn't backed by anything.
 
SmokeRngs said:
You're correct. Cash has no intrinsic worth or value. It's all based on what is backing up the cash. In the case of the US dollar it's backed up by the US economy and to a smaller extent the US government.

Crypto isn't backed by anything.
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Crypto is backed by the faith and trust of the method of the algorithm that validates it's transactions, just as cash is backed by the faith and trust of the US government. Both are worthless unless someone is willing to value it.
 
stinger608 said:
How long does it take to mine one Ethereum coin @LeRoy_Blanchard ??
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I've only got older Nvidia cards. Two 1080s and 1 1070, they each do anywhere between $18 - $25 worth of Crypto per month if RAN 24/7. But since I also use my CPUs and GPUs for BOINC projects they don't mine 24/7. Like right now my BOINC team is in a competition on the project called SRBase which can utilize GPUs for crunching. So they're doing that right now.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
my BOINC team is in a competition on the project called SRBase which can utilize GPUs for crunching. So they're doing that right now.
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Oh no kidding? I run BOINC as well but just doing World Community Grid crunching. Don't think I've heard of SRBase crunching.

Are you on an [H] team?
 
David_Schroth said:
Crypto is backed by the faith and trust of the method of the algorithm that validates it's transactions, just as cash is backed by the faith and trust of the US government. Both are worthless unless someone is willing to value it.
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The US dollar is backed by the economy of the US, not the government. The government simply claims the value of the economy. The economy itself has tangible worth. The people, the businesses, equipment, patents, ideas and even more. Those are things with real value and useful in many different ways.

An algorithm doesn't have any worth other than what one person can convince another person to buy it for. It has no use other than what it is. It doesn't create anything. You can't make it produce food or create products in a factory. It isn't going to ring up your food at the grocery store. At no point does it have any value outside of the narrow definition of value which has been imposed upon it.
 
David_Schroth said:
You could argue it's a banking service. Crypto generally provides a means to determine who has the rights to its units that's validated through a distributed validation process as opposed to the centralized system of money that we generally use today. By your argument, banks, the federal reserve, cash, payment processing businesses, etc., also do not have "actual" worth. 🙃
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The regular banking and payment processing systems are infinitely more efficient than crypto. I once did the calculations a few years ago. If all money transactions handled by banks and other payment processing institutions were made in crypto instead. Crypto would need 10 times the total energy consumption of humanity to process all those transactions. So it's not whether we need crypto, it is that crypto is literally a doomsday device if it grows too large.
 
SmokeRngs said:
The US dollar is backed by the economy of the US, not the government. The government simply claims the value of the economy. The economy itself has tangible worth. The people, the businesses, equipment, patents, ideas and even more. Those are things with real value and useful in many different ways.

An algorithm doesn't have any worth other than what one person can convince another person to buy it for. It has no use other than what it is. It doesn't create anything. You can't make it produce food or create products in a factory. It isn't going to ring up your food at the grocery store. At no point does it have any value outside of the narrow definition of value which has been imposed upon it.
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And I'm sure when gold was replaced as the standard currency old people who only knew how gold worked had the same arguments.
 
What I find interesting about Cryptocurrencies.

Sure, I get the "it's worth what someone else is willing to pay" argument. No issue with that because it's absolutely true. And I think blockchain has a lot of good merits.

But the part that I think is interesting. It's not just monopoly money. There's a considerable amount of cost associated with generating it - you need machines and you need a considerable amount of energy. I suppose that's true with coin and paper money as well - you have to actually make it, so there is some sunk cost associated with just making it some sort of financial tender. Even Gold - it's intrinsic value is in it's rarity, and you have to go find it.

But the funny part about Crypto - it's designed to get harder and harder to generate as time goes on. You need better hardware and/or more energy. Maybe that isn't true of all Cryptocurrencies, I don't know. But that intentional ramp up that is intended to control inflation and protect value eats into it's ultimate worth and usefulness.

I do get that is an intentional attempt to introduce a level of rarity into the currency, to preserve value. But to most people - it's just a digital asset - there is no physical reason it should have any scarcity. Gold, diamonds, etc - most people can wrap their head around the fact that there is only so much of that in the ground. But a Bitcoin? Someone made that on their computer, and the only reason you can't make more is because Nakamoto said so... so who's to say he won't change is mind later on, or someone won't figure out a way around it, or quantum computing won't blow the algorithm wide open? I think this is a big Achille's Heel of Crypto right now.

The other hangup, and what I still can't understand and the biggest reason I won't touch Crypto myself: Ok so it's all based on blockchain, and it's all supposed to be highly secure and traceable. That's great. So I see probably one or two high profile cases of currency theft a year - people getting their digital wallets pilfered. If it's so secure and great, how does that occur? If security and tracing are such big assets, how can it get stolen?

I get, as a Gen X'er who's been around computing for a while - I believe Crypto is probably safer than stuffing my mattress full of cash - but I'd never be able to convince my Dad of that. But I don't think it's as safe as a bank account... and until it gets there, Crypto will only be considered play money - the same level I'd take to the casino (and for me, that's... 0 - I'd rather spend my money at the bar and know I'm getting something for it) . But it wouldn't ever be a serious investment vehicle.
 
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