Long Beach (CoinChapter) – In February NVIDIA announced the creation of the NVIDIA CMP, designed exclusively for cryptocurrency mining. NVIDIA limited the hash rate of its GeForce RTX 3060 mining chip which had become increasingly popular for Ethereum miners. This was done to separate its product offerings between gamers and miners.
But Ethereum miners based in China have seemingly found a way to bypass this limited hash rate using a custom mod. This news was ultimately debunked and experts said it was almost impossible to get around the restrictions. But multiple subsequent reports have claimed that a beta driver release bypasses NVIDIA’s restrictions.
All of this adds to the growing concerns within the chip industry. Manufacturers NVIDIA and AMD are attempting to accommodate the needs of both gamers and crypto miners. The surge in mining revenues have led to desperate operators buying inventory, which has in turn led to GPU prices skyrocketing.
Gamers have been concerned about GPU shortages due to demand from miners. Chip shortages have led to crypto miners resorting to gaming laptops to wring out extra hash rate and benefit from bull-run profits. As such, screenshots suggesting that Chinese Ethereum miners had found a way to bypass restrictions came as no surprise.
Screenshots Used Were Not of Ethereum
It was later revealed that those screenshots weren’t of Ethereum, but another blockchain. Mining experts said that only an NVIDIA insider would be able to make those kinds of changes, but that claim was also debunked. Experts from multiple industry publications revealing that a recent beta driver release, bypasses the manufacturer’s hash rate limits.
In the meantime, AMD is reportedly in the midst of developing its own dedicated mining chipset. The AMD Navi 12 will have no video outputs and specifically targets Ethereum miners. It would be the first crypto mining-related specific processor launched by the company.
So far this year, Ethereum network fees earned by miners have more than doubled. It is even greater than last year’s peak and no crypto comes close to ETH in terms of mining profitability. On the flipside is that the average transaction fee reached over $38 in late February, making the network unviable for smaller transactions. The upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is designed to ease those concerns however.
