ZOTAC Pulls Tweet Promoting GeForce RTX Graphics Cards for Cryptomining

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Image: ZOTAC



Hong Kong-based graphics card manufacturer ZOTAC published a tweet on its official Twitter account earlier today suggesting that it really liked the idea of its GPUs being bought up and used by cryptominers instead of gamers. We’re not sure what the company was thinking, as all it did was incite the fury of legitimate enthusiasts who have been having a tough time finding a modern graphics card to buy at prices that aren’t completely insane.



“An army of ZOTACGAMING GPUs hungry for coin!” the tweet reads, coupled with an image of a long row of what appears to be the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC White Edition. This is a graphics card that’s reportedly capable of mining around $8 of ETH (today’s second most valuable cryptocurrency) per hour.



“Get Amplified with the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 30 Series based on...
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If you're hunting for a card right now you'll generally take the brand and model you can get.
 
I'd be curious to know if this was just one idiot PR person, or really their top down strategy?
Because if it was one idiot, then I can let that slide, every company has less than competent people, but if it was an approved marketing strategy that means a lot of people must've had the opportunity to shut this down before it came out, and that is inexcusable.
 
I think every company is selling-out to the miners first. Zotac was just too stupid to publicly advertise to them. Miners will buy up whatever stock they can get their hands on, since the ROI right now is real quick.
 
I see nothing wrong with their tweet.

They're marketing to buyers. Why should Zotac care if those cards are used for gaming or mining?
 
Riccochet said:
I see nothing wrong with their tweet.

They're marketing to buyers. Why should Zotac care if those cards are used for gaming or mining?
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Every sane person should care what they are used for. And they themselves posted it with the tags "gamers" so they are advertising it to gamers that they are selling to miners.

If they had a shed of common decency they'd make sure every last gamer gets a gpu before any of them goes to mining. Not because gamers are protected, but because gamers won't use it to speed head first into an economic collapse.

Sounds melodramatic? It's the truth. Every coin miner is wasting resources causing false ripples in the economy that is not backed by actual value being created. Meaning every falsecoin generated does not have goods or services behind it to justify their value.
 
MadMummy76 said:
Every sane person should care what they are used for. And they themselves posted it with the tags "gamers" so they are advertising it to gamers that they are selling to miners.

If they had a shed of common decency they'd make sure every last gamer gets a gpu before any of them goes to mining. Not because gamers are protected, but because gamers won't use it to speed head first into an economic collapse.

Sounds melodramatic? It's the truth. Every coin miner is wasting resources causing false ripples in the economy that is not backed by actual value being created. Meaning every falsecoin generated does not have goods or services behind it to justify their value.
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Sounds like you're bitter that you didn't get in on crypto when the getting was good.

Value is not backed by anything other than someone's willingness to pay X amount for whatever. People are willing to pay $50,000 for 1 bitcoin. That's how value is determined. Just like the US dollar is not backed by anything. It's value is perceived only by those receiving it and spending it.

And Zotac doesn't care what a card is used for after it's sold. Only that they sell. Miners, gamers, slather it with crisco and jam it up your rear. They don't care.
 
Riccochet said:
Value is not backed by anything other than someone's willingness to pay X amount for whatever. People are willing to pay $50,000 for 1 bitcoin. That's how value is determined. Just like the US dollar is not backed by anything. It's value is perceived only by those receiving it and spending it.

And Zotac doesn't care what a card is used for after it's sold. Only that they sell. Miners, gamers, slather it with crisco and jam it up your rear. They don't care.
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This is all true. I can't really blame Zotac. They want to build and sell cards, and they are certainly selling.

As a non-mining gamer though, I hate that miners have appropriated the equipment I need for my hobby. And I dislike that vendors haven't come up with sufficient specific mining solutions for miners to keep the products defined and seperate. It's insult to injury that miners feed right into the hands of scalpers and the scalping has already been bad enough. Although I understand we have constrained supply -- even if there were more broadly available mining cards, it would be at the expense of available gaming cards anyway, I still resent my hobby cards being marketed to "the enemy". (side bar, I do absolutely laugh at the pics of mining rigs with RGB...)

Even nVidia's new announcement that the 3060 will be mining nerfed via driver is ... meh (miners will just use an alternate driver, or a driver hack will come out shortly to bypass it...), and that they are coming out with a mining-specific chip/card is also meh (it will almost certainly be binned out from existing GPU die stock, or at the very least at the expense of their already contracted fab capacity, so again, at the expense of what was going to be a video card).

Really, if crypto isn't going to die out soon (please!), then Bitmain (or some other company) will come out with better ASICs. I've heard Eth is programmed specifically to make it difficult for ASIC design... but if you can design a GPU to do it well, you can design a special purpose machine to do the same thing and probably do it better, just like they have done with BTC...

I don't quite put miners in the same category as scalpers, but it's fairly close... like scalpers and pedophiles belong in the 9th level of hell, miners may only belong in the 3rd level with people who are mean to dogs and asshats that drive slow in the fast lane.
 
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Riccochet said:
Sounds like you're bitter that you didn't get in on crypto when the getting was good.
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Not any more bitter than I am at not buying into Apple in 1997 or any other stock/bond. I see crypto as an investment vehicle, with varying levels of risk / reward, just like I do any other stock or investment opportunity.

For people who are mining it, however - you crazy crazy fools. Hey, if you can make money doing it, more power to you, I guess it's not any more crazy than people making money from Twitch or manning up the glory hole at the local Interstate public restroom. I don't resent that, how you make your money is up to you, but I do very much resent the fact that I can't buy computer hardware, and your just one bad day away from having a garage full of expensive computer hardware and a sky high power bill with nothing else to show for it.


**edit - for full disclosure, actually I did buy Apple in '97. I sold it in '08 to buy my first house $$$. Had I held on to it though... but I don't really regret my decision. Home ownership is worth it.
 
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Riccochet said:
Sounds like you're bitter that you didn't get in on crypto when the getting was good.
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That's the exact type of thinking that those use who are doing it. The inability to think in any other terms than their own short term gains.

Value is not backed by anything other than someone's willingness to pay X amount for whatever. People are willing to pay $50,000 for 1 bitcoin. That's how value is determined. Just like the US dollar is not backed by anything. It's value is perceived only by those receiving it and spending it.
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That's how monetary value is determined, not actual value. As in what does it do for society how do we benefit from throwing away all those natural resources on it?

The US dollar's value is backed by the economy of the United States, it has value because the US has a huge *** GDP and it has trade agreements all around the world.

And Zotac doesn't care what a card is used for after it's sold. Only that they sell. Miners, gamers, slather it with crisco and jam it up your rear. They don't care.
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And that was exactly my point. Any responsible company should care if their product is used as a rectal annihilator. Especially on a societal level.
 
MadMummy76 said:
And that was exactly my point. Any responsible company should care if their product is used as a rectal annihilator. Especially on a societal level.
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You do have a point - there is a line a company should have with respect to whom they will sell to and what they allow.

That said, with respect to tech products like this: I think that line is probably pretty far away from crypto mining. I would expect Zotac to refuse sales from, say, agencies wanting to use their products to illegally crack encryption, or for export to embargoed countries, or for use in development or deployment of weapons of mass destruction... but apart from a few pretty obvious moral lines, I would expect Zotac (and anyone else) to have a pretty liberal interpretation of who would be eligible to purchase their product.

The tweet was in poor taste, in my opinion, but only because it was insensitive to my first world plight of not being able to purchase a luxury item, not because it crossed any real red line.
 
MadMummy76 said:
That's the exact type of thinking that those use who are doing it. The inability to think in any other terms than their own short term gains.

That's how monetary value is determined, not actual value. As in what does it do for society how do we benefit from throwing away all those natural resources on it?

The US dollar's value is backed by the economy of the United States, it has value because the US has a huge *** GDP and it has trade agreements all around the world.


And that was exactly my point. Any responsible company should care if their product is used as a rectal annihilator. Especially on a societal level.
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Seriously. You just sound butthurt that you can't easily buy a card. And that other people are using cards in ways that you don't approve of.

Got it. K, thx, bye, Karen.
 
Riccochet said:
Seriously. You just sound butthurt that you can't easily buy a card. And that other people are using cards in ways that you don't approve of.

Got it. K, thx, bye, Karen.
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My opinion on cryptocurrency is the same as M76, and I've had it since Bitcoin was worth fractions of a penny. The fact that it is over $50k USD per coin today hasn't changed that opinion.
 
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