News Nvidia CTO: Cryptocurrency Adds Nothing Useful to Society

[Admin]

GPU processing power can be used for much more useful things than mining cryptocurrencies, Nvidia CTO says.

Nvidia CTO: Cryptocurrency Adds Nothing Useful to Society : Read more

 

[Giroro]

"You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don’t redirect the company to support whatever it is."

So... is Nvidia's CTO trying to say he's completely unaware of the RTX 4000 series, or is he just trying to gaslight us?

 

[InvalidError]

Funny that Nvidia's senior execs would dunk on crypto after using it as a convenient excuse to inflate mainstream GPU prices by 30-40%. Though I agree that virtual monopoly money contributes little if anything useful to most of humanity, just a more convoluted pump-and-dump scheme which also provides convenient money laundering for third parties while it lasts.

 

[Endymio]

Funny that Nvidia's senior execs would dunk on crypto after using it as a convenient excuse to inflate mainstream GPU prices by 30-40%.

You're off base here. In a free market, no company needs an "excuse" to sell their products for whatever price they wish. Nor do higher prices always yield higher returns. Determining an optimal pricing strategy is a core tenet of business degrees. Walk into any store and examine any product: if the manufacturer has done its job properly, then a lower or higher price for the product would generate less total profits for the firm.

During the pandemic, NVidia (and many other firms) actually worsened the shortages by refusing to increase their prices and capture the entirety of the additional profits. The prices rose anyway -- but the excess profit went to scalpers instead, rather than manufacturers who could have used it to further production. A classic study in "grey market" economics. Such markets are less efficient, but there's no getting around that law of supply and demand, no matter how hard we whine and stamp our feet.

 

[atomicWAR]

Two GPUs walk into a bar...

Oh wait Jensen was being serious?

Three GPUs walk into a bar. The first GPU says 'we'll take three shots of you top shelf whiskey. I assume you take etherum as payment?'

To which the bartender says 'no sorry your cyrpto is worthless to me'.

So the second GPU says 'hey, how about we all play a game of CS:GO for for them?'

To which the bartender again says 'No sorry SLI threeways aren't worth it because rarely does it perform well, so your offer is basically worthless to me'.

So the third GPU says in the sexist voice it could render 'Why don't you pour those shots and we can chat about our usefulness to you?'

The bartender nods, grabs a bottle from the shelf and says... 'I always need someone to chat with. Where have you been my entire life?'

Jensens comment is like a bad joke you can't get out of your head and where you as a gamer are the punchline. SMH

 

[kal326]

During the pandemic, NVidia (and many other firms) actually worsened the shortages by refusing to increase their prices and capture the entirety of the additional profits.

The court of public opinion doesn’t give a damn about the law of supply and demand. If the manufacturers increased prices sure they would have earned even higher of record profits, but they would have immediately painted themselves as the bad guy, full stop. The “scalper boogie man” publicly gave them an out even if some vendor partners were selling pallets of cards straight to scalpers. What they gave up in direct profits they certainly regained plenty in goodwill.

Also the current state of 4070Ti and 4080 cards sitting in inventory shows that those prices were unsustainable for anything outside of halo products like the 4090. Then there is the issue of adjusting back down official MSRP. It’s hard to go back down with a lot of iterative products. Graphics cards, cars, etc. Things consumers expect to be a new, better, and at the same price or slightly higher year over year. There is no good way to back a price back down without making someone unhappy. Investors are probably going to be the most vocal about the change regardless of how happy it makes consumers.

 

[Giroro]

You're off base here. In a free market, no company needs an "excuse" to sell their products for whatever price they wish. Nor do higher prices always yield higher returns. Determining an optimal pricing strategy is a core tenet of business degrees. Walk into any store and examine any product: if the manufacturer has done its job properly, then a lower or higher price for the product would generate less total profits for the firm.

During the pandemic, NVidia (and many other firms) actually worsened the shortages by refusing to increase their prices and capture the entirety of the additional profits. The prices rose anyway -- but the excess profit went to scalpers instead, rather than manufacturers who could have used it to further production. A classic study in "grey market" economics. Such markets are less efficient, but there's no getting around that law of supply and demand, no matter how hard we whine and stamp our feet.

Yes, in a free market, companies absolutely need an excuse to raise prices... at least if they want their higher prices to yield higher returns. It doesn't have to be a good, valid, or true excuse - but customers only reject price hikes when they happen "for no reason". This is especially true when the company is selling a product that your target audience in no way needs, like for example luxury-priced consumer-grade GPUs that are being sold as expensive toys to gamers.

The main exception to this is a when there is when the market is controlled by a tightly colluding oligopoly or a de facto monopoly. Which by definition is not a free market as no competition is allowed to exist.

Also, Nvidia absolutely raised their prices before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and again when the crypto fad took off.

 

[randyh121]

Crypto has changed the WORLD for the better. Much like the motor vehicle when it was adopted over 100 years ago, there was initial skepticism. But that doubt is forgotten as years pass. This last cry by NVIDIA is just a final whimper from the big BANKS , as crypto goes to the moon to take over modern payment system (as it already is now!)
Kind of sad to see really these rich monopolies cry that they are no longer in control as we cryptoers take over the worlds new trade system.

 

[DSzymborski]

Crypto has changed the WORLD for the better. Much like the motor vehicle when it was adopted over 100 years ago, there was initial skepticism. But that doubt is forgotten as years pass. This last cry by NVIDIA is just a final whimper from the big BANKS , as crypto goes to the moon to take over modern payment system (as it already is now!)
Kind of sad to see really these rich monopolies cry that they are no longer in control as we cryptoers take over the worlds new trade system.

Where exactly has crypto "taken over" the modern payment system? This seems as imaginary as your definition of plagiarism or that business you own.

 

[BX4096]

Crypto has changed the WORLD for the better.

Trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity wasted, money laundering, and easier access to child porn and illegal materials notwithstanding, I'd like you to name one way in which it quantifiably and objectively "changed the world for the better."

 

[Endymio]

What [GPU makers] gave up in direct profits they certainly regained plenty in goodwill.

Of course; that's why they did it. However in this case your "court of public opinion" not only reached the wrong verdict, but one that hurt themselves directly. Due to deadweight loss and other factors, manufacturers could have raised prices by less than what scalpers did, and still reached equilibrium pricing. The result would have been no shortages AND a lower average price paid by consumers during this period. Mob mentalities are commonplace, unfortunately, but they're never productive.

In a free market, companies absolutely need an excuse to raise prices... customers only reject price hikes when they happen "for no reason".

Eh? I'm sorry, but purchasing decisions don't work like this. A rational consumer makes a purchase when the relative utility (value) of the item purchased is higher than that the of the money you surrender for it. Period This is true even for items "purchased" not with money, but via barter, or even a simple expenditure of time, as in the classic "boy picking berries" example of diminishing marginal utility.

Millions of you gamers made this crystal-clear during the pandemic, as some of you set the value of increasing your frame rates in the range of $2,000 or even more, while other set it much lower, and decided to wait until prices dropped.

 

[InvalidError]

Eh? I'm sorry, but purchasing decisions don't work like this. A rational consumer makes a purchase when the relative utility (value) of the item purchased is higher than that the of the money you surrender for it.

When you have an oligopoly situation, buyers don't get to choose. You pay whatever the few possible suppliers tell you to pay if you want/need service no matter how bad the pricing and performance may be or you are out.

 

[randyh121]

Where exactly has crypto "taken over" the modern payment system?

Go to any online marketplace, crypto is an option to pay and even sometimes the only way to pay. The blockchain has revolutionized the way we work in todays technology industry.

Trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity wasted

Not wasted

money laundering

Money laundering is done through every kind of currency, it will always be a problem with or without cryptocurrency. Non-Issue

easier access to child porn and illegal materials notwithstanding

Not true, crypto does not support either of these.

 

[SSGBryan]

Crypto has changed the WORLD for the better. Much like the motor vehicle when it was adopted over 100 years ago, there was initial skepticism. But that doubt is forgotten as years pass. This last cry by NVIDIA is just a final whimper from the big BANKS , as crypto goes to the moon to take over modern payment system (as it already is now!)
Kind of sad to see really these rich monopolies cry that they are no longer in control as we cryptoers take over the worlds new trade system.

Remind me again how many billions in crypto disappeared via theft in 2022?

 

[Endymio]

When you have an oligopoly situation, buyers don't get to choose.

Of course you get to choose; you're buying entertainment, not breathable oxygen. You can choose to keep your existing card. You can buy an older, used card, or you can choose a different form of entertainment entirely. This is the 'substitution effect' in economics. Some consumers will value the extra frames/sec very highly; others less so, and still others will choose to watch a movie instead, or they may go outside and (gasp, heresy!) engage in physical sports or some other form of direct human contact. But it's still always a choice: do I value this new graphics card more than what else I could spend this disposable income on?

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

Here I thought crypto-bros had faded into the ether.... (pun intended)

 

[PEnns]

Crypto has changed the WORLD for the better.

It sure did!!

Especially if you're a drug lord, a money launderer, a Wall Street / Twitter / Social Media / influencer or other scam artist.

Or even better: A pathetic, broke, 5th World country who bet on it and now look like total idiots and are even poorer!!

 

[InvalidError]

Of course you get to choose; you're buying entertainment, not breathable oxygen.

Not every GPU gets used primarily to play games and keeping whatever you already have is only an option as long as whatever you already have still works well enough for whatever you use it for. An RTX4090 may be a luxury but a GTX1050 is barely enough to render the desktop and Chrome before running out of VRAM to the point that I have to disable browser hardware acceleration to prevent glitches in stuff that actually needs the GPU.

 

[BX4096]

nuh-uh... unh-unh....uh-uh...

Your waste of a reply forgot to actually answer my question. In the meantime, let me address your childish defiance:

Report of the Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force
[D]espite its relatively brief existence, cryptocurrency technology plays a role in many of the most significant criminal and national security threats that the US faces. For example, cryptocurrency is increasingly used to buy and sell lethal drugs on the dark web (and by drug cartels seeking to launder their profits)...

Crypto exchanges enabled online child sex-abuse profiteer
The sums involved in buying and selling images of sexual abuse remain small compared to other criminal activities, such as the drugs trade. But the figures are increasing. While in the past offenders typically traded child abuse imagery among themselves in small communities, the darknet has become a breeding ground for sites like Dark Scandals that charge in crypto. [...] "For those people looking to make money from child sexual abuse, crypto has lowered the barrier," said Dan Sexton, the IWF's chief technology officer.

As for the power consumption, Bitcoin alone now consumes about 150 terawatt-hours of electricity annually on what is essentially can be described up as completely useless, arbitrary computations. For comparison, out of nearly 200 countries on the planet, only something like 30 countries use more electricity than that. But hey, please explain how the crypto-parasites are actually "changing the world for the better". I'm all ears.

 

[edzieba]

I'm not sure exactly what people expected Nvidia to actually do. Demand for your GPUs double to triple normal demand (from gamers and pennypinching GPGPU enthusiasts), do you:
a) Increase production as much as possible, request fab houses build up more fab capacity (several years lead-time)[1], and pay a premium to 'buy out' wafers from other customers[2]? Attempt to implement software - and later efuse - limits to make gaming cards less attractive for mining? Fob off dies that fail the lowest binning threshold for gaming cards as 'mining accelerators' in order to increase supply without impacting gaming cards. And still end up with OEMs raising prices due to supply still not meeting demand. Remember, FE cards make up a few percent at most of GPUs sold, the vast majority are built by OEMs who buy the chip packages alone from Nvidia.
b) Do nothing to increase supply, have prices increase even further and supply be even tighter, but wave a little flag saying "we're not giving into crypto!" and declare victory as miners buy up that even more limited supply at even more vastly inflated prices?
c) Utilise precognitive psychic powers to tell that a chip shipped to an OEM will later by mounted to a card that is sold to a wholesaler that sells it to retailer that sells it to a reseller who sells it to a miner, and refuse to sell the chip?

[1] And later have to cancel orders, leaving fab houses in a hole and who also have to put fab expansions on hold.
[2] Why shortages of small-die-area volume ICs dried up as those chip buyers were priced out of the market, leading to all the well publicised effects on the supply chain for cars, consumer electronics, etc.

 

[Endymio]

Not every GPU gets used primarily to play games ... An RTX4090 may be a luxury but a GTX1050 is barely enough to render the desktop and Chrome before running out of VRAM...

Now you're really reaching. Integrated graphics -- at a net cost over a base cpu so near to $0 as to be nearly indistinguishable -- will run the desktop and Chrome perfectly fine. Claiming you're forced to buy a discrete graphics card simply to browse the Internet is quite the stretch.

 

[FunSurfer]

Nvidia: AI can do Crypto too. Ka-Ching!

 

[passivecool]

the elephant in the room is of course that gaming is 99,8% a equally useless waste of resources and a leadfoot to society at large. Yall should instead get a good night's sleep and tomorrow find a neighbor who needs a little help,

 

[Plurality]

the elephant in the room is of course that gaming is 99,8% a equally useless waste of resources and a leadfoot to society at large. Yall should instead get a good night's sleep and tomorrow find a neighbor who needs a little help,

Play isn't useless. We're a social species; play is social interaction that promotes interpersonal bonding while resulting in novel, and thus rewarding, stimuli. Humans have been playing, in some form or other, since there have been humans on this planet. We drink together, gamble together, play board games together, dance together, tell each other jokes and riddles and stories. Gaming is just the newest form of play.

Besides, I dislike my neighbours. Hell with 'em.

 

[Dr3ams]

The Bear market is over for GPU makers.