NVidia’s CEO Jensen Huang said that cryptocurrency will stick around for some time, and that he expects blockchain and cryptocurrency will be an important driver for GPUs.
To clarify, he said that: ‘Cryptocurrency will be here. The ability for the world to have a very low-friction, low-cost way of exchanging value is going to be here for a long time’.
He also said that cryptocurrency mining is far from a growth driver for GPU demand. The majority of NVidia’s growth comes from the video gaming, datacenter, professional graphics, and autonomous technology industries.
Ethereum, Monero, Electroneum and similar cryptocurrencies account for a significant portion of GPU mining operations. Bitcoin is now mined by ASIC miners, not GPUs. Although there could still be a few GPU miners around. This is because GPU mining rigs don’t amount to the efficiency of the now-dominant ASIC miners.
Some cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum are transitioning to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. However, there are still many that will continue to use mining for now, as mining (proof-of-work) has benefits of its own.
