This article makes little sense.
The real reason for the supply chain is due to the endless lockdowns and the stupid mandates, because the whole world is turning authoritarian. The laying off of people plays a huge part as well.
Mining contributes to it but it's just an adder. It might slow down the increase but the trend is going to be higher and higher prices all across the board. So if you are upset about gaming GPUs being too expensive, what do you feel about higher food and gas prices?
No it doesn't (edit: just realized this intro sentence makes no sense, so more like, No that's not the main reason, lol). However, the article is wrong it will stop all mining, of course.
The reason mining contributes so heavily into the price of GPUs is the ease at which a profit can be generated by the 30 series. If you look at prices in both 2017 and last year, you can see specifically how this works. The SAME arguments and same complaints were used in the parabolic rise in prices in 2017. The 1080 and 1080ti were groundbreaking in terms of increasing hashrate.
The 20 series was garbage, and didn't really improve much in that sense. (check both crypto and nvidia stock at 1080 release and 30 series release; it really didnt take long. at 20 series release, you can see a big down drop in both. it was disappointing in the extreme)
The 30 series is incredible. It's really a marvel of engineering, as much as we are accustomed to such things. A single 3080 (FHR) has the hashrate of several 1080s.
I tried mining casually last year (can't do it here much, electricity scales in cost) and I was making around $8 per day (possibly more had I ran it 24 hours, but undervolted) doing nothing. At that point, my 3080 was a low end model that cost me like $800 after shipping and tax, so... I would have made my money back in literally only 3 months. It is an investment -> profit thing. The sanctions and supply issues/semiconductor shortages also have a part, but the LACK of a crash in btc, unlike in 2017, has continued to see the used market being increasingly abused my miners. If you even check hardwareswap you can see people buying them up in the dozens, basically.
Have 100 GPUs and the electricity/setup to operate them? $8000 to get $80 a day. Add in electricity costs (which, btw, some places DO NOT have, a lot of places in china previously subsidized it, and in america some places do not), and maybe you can subtract 25% or 30% from the overall profit. (This was all last NOVEMBER, 2020, btw. Before crypto started its current cycle. no idea how it would go now, but mining pools tend to work in certain ways anyway)
So at a 3-4x price premium, that 'making investment back in 3 months' becomes 'making investment back in 1 year or longer'. With how ETH/BTC/etc operates in terms of price action, the
risk of this increases. Because of how volatile crypto is, the possibility your investment will be worthless soon is very high. However, because of the lack of a real crash (60k -> 35k -> 60k is not a crash, just a large swing), the OVERALL volatility of crypto lowers. It appears
much more appealing to continue to grow ones hashrate potential. Thus, GPU prices increase both to scarcity and this possibility.
It's basic market theory idk. It's pretty obvious to me.
"the world is becoming increasingly authoritarian"
Sorry but as long as capitalism exists it will always be this way, veiled under a thin cloak of lobbyist democracy. Your anger is misdirected.
And even if you remove GPU mining anyway, video cards are still hot commodity items and it won't remove the fact that scalpers will buy them all up the moment they can to turn it around for a profit. This has been a problem well before crypto was on most people's radar.
Most gamers refuse to buy at these prices. Demand is very low among gamers. If you remove the incentive of profit from miners by the purchase of these cards, demand will plummet because the investment is not worthwhile. Prices will drop because there
is some supply, but the supply is taken by those looking NOT to scalp, but to invest.
EVGA just released a bunch on queue. I got one. Checked ebay/hardwareswap etc, lots of people flipping those for easy money, because it is. Those go not to gamers, because hardly anyone wants to drop $1800 or $1600 on a 3080 unless you can afford it anyway, but someone considering them an
investment and not a
consumer product WILL in fact spend that money if they believe the risk is worthwhile.