Cryptocurrency mining rig producer Bitmain announced the pending launch of a brand new Ether (ETH) miner on April 16. The Antminer E9 mannequin is an application-specific built-in circuit chip, which is able to run on the Ethereum blockchain’s Ethash algorithm.
No official launch date has but been introduced for the E9, nonetheless, the machine’s arrival will not be as impactful as first suspected. The rig faces competitors within the type of Nvidia’s CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) vary of GPUs, designed particularly for crypto mining. In the meantime, Ethereum’s scheduled move away from proof-of-work towards a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism may imply the E9’s utility is short-lived.
Nvidia just lately introduced that its CMP vary was anticipated to rake in $150 million in earnings within the first quarter of the yr — three times more than the agency had initially anticipated.
Regardless of the obvious booming reputation of its crypto-specific graphics playing cards, Nvidia chief monetary officer Colette Kress mentioned on an buyers name this week that the corporate anticipated its GPU scarcity to proceed for the remainder of the yr, regardless of rising provide.
“We count on demand to proceed to exceed provide for a lot of this yr […] We’ll see provide proceed to extend all through this quarter in addition to all year long,” Kress mentioned, as reported by The Verge.
Nvidia has struggled to satisfy demand for GPUs from its core gaming buyer base for a while, as would-be miners gobbled up cards to mine Ether and different cryptocurrencies. The phenomenon of Nvidia’s provide scarcity first emerged in late 2017 because the bull run of that yr attracted extra individuals towards crypto mining. After cooling off considerably within the intervening years, the GPU scarcity emerged as soon as once more in 2020 and reveals no indicators of abating.
Nvidia additionally introduced on April 15 the launch of a brand new anti-crypto mining model of the RTX 3060. Earlier this yr, the agency launched the RTX 3060 graphics card with a built-in limiter which made it lower than half as efficient when mining cryptocurrency, as a part of its efforts to separate gaming and mining demand.
Inside days hackers had been rumored to have bypassed the mining limiter, and just some days later nonetheless, Nvidia shot itself in the foot by releasing an official driver replace which unintentionally eliminated the limiter by itself.
The brand new model of the RTX 3060 will reportedly retain the identical identify and branding, however will see the defective driver changed fully, reports TechRadar.
Whereas Bitmain’s launch of the E9 could seem somewhat late given Ethereum’s eventual transfer to proof-of-stake within the subsequent yr or so, the restricted time left to mine ETH may additionally end in a pointy demand spike, as miners search to build up as a lot ETH as doable earlier than the changeover.
We requested Nvidia if it anticipated the discharge of the E9 to assist ease its GPU scarcity by diverting demand, or, whether or not the corporate considered the rig as competitors for its CMP vary. This text will likely be up to date ought to Nvidia reply.
