GPU Prices & Mining - A musing on the psychology of greed.

I'd find this GPU hysteria funny if I didn't need a new GPU myself. However, I decided to hold off until after Christmas and to content myself for now with a $200 eBay second-hand purchase after reasoning out that:

1.Basic economics suggests that where supply can't satisfy demand, suppliers able to do so profitably (and this is definitely the case with GPU's) will increase production until it can. That could take some time, even a year or two, but it means that the high prices will inevitably end, by which time a new series of GPU's will be out.

2.That is complicated by the nature of the demand for GPU's. It's not like say toasters, where you only need one and are only likely to buy one. If miners can make a profit out of a GPU, I suppose they will buy as many as they can in terms of funding and storage, making the demand theoretically infinite.

3.This is itself complicated by some factors. Like in a gold rush, more mining eventually leads to the activity becoming unprofitable. More importantly, there can be external constraints on demand, as with Ethereum 2. Ethereum 2 is happening. It began in October 2020 and the merge is scheduled for Q1 or Q2 2022. When it does (and likely well before), the $#% will hit the fan, many second-hand GPU's will be on the market and pricing of new GPU's will be dragged down by that, as happened a few years ago.

Now comes the bit I find funny. Miners are still talking up mining. Were I a miner with existing gear, I'd be unloading it soonish (definitely by Christmas) and certainly not adding to it. Miners don't seem to see it that way, at least according to the many posts I've read on various forums. Trying to understand their true motivations, as opposed to forum claims, it seems to me that:

The shrewd miners will have done the calculations of when the party will be over, how much longer (if at all) profit can be made on new gear and when to dispose of existing and new gear. By "party over", I don't mean the E2 merger. I mean the date by which any future profit on equipment is going to be exceeded by its drop in value. In the meantime, the shrewd miners will be talking up mining, to postpone the party over date as long as possible.

Other miners will be less schrewd and will be motivated by greed or capture theory and believe that money can be made from mining indefinitely or at least long enough for them to get out in time. Most of them will be burnt bad.

If I could round off my point with a couple of anecdotes:

I am an older professional who has lived and worked through many boom and bust cycles. There have always been people who made money out of them and people who got burnt. The difference turned on maintaining perspective and timing. The baddest burnt were those who borrowed money to invest, i.e. you wouldn't want to have bought multiple GPU's on credit and be carrying that debt when values collapse.

My brother and his wife own a rural property in a former gold/sapphire rush area and the property contains a ridge line on the side of which are innumerable former gold mining shafts. Some of these are unbelievably deep for a shaft dug by one or two guys with shovels. Some of these (I have been told European) are square and (were) shored with timber. These took longer to dig, but fewer people died in them. Some (I have been told Chinese) were round and unshored and many people died in them. There is still gold and sapphire there, just not enough for it to be economic to mine (although mining companies occasionally investigate whether new technology may make limited resumption feasible). Walking through the area evokes images of the many thousands of men who must have come in hopes of making a fortune. How many did? How many found it worth it given what they had to give up to do it? A harder time than now of course, making risks more worthwhile, but I think it illustrates the sort of delusional thinking that can arise when profits are being made.

Comments

  • +9

    Ok.

    • +2

      Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Makes a rant easy after going through the discord server in stock prices.

  • +1

    A TLTR for others :), what you are saying is, ”What goes up must come down” and History has a tendency to repeat.

    • +2

      was hoping someone would condense war and peace into 30 words or less.

    • -1

      Not my point. This is a musing on the psychology of greed.

      People can decide for themselves whether to read a long post. The interested can read it or even make a useful contribution for anyone else interested. The lazy can ignore it. Those too lazy to read, but wanting to look clever and presumptuous enough to claim to speak for others can make snide comments.

      • +5

        ”If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” - Albert Einstein

        • +3

          He also said ‘Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’ you be the judge

        • "Brevity is the soul of wit" - Shakespeare

  • +1

    Tldr

    I suggest you read one of the other hundred posts on overpriced GPUs.

      • +9

        Why would I want to read the same whining for the hundredth time? Yes prices are high. Yes people want to make money from either mining or scalping. No, your card is not an essential thing for life, so no one cares if you can't buy it at the price you want. Either buy it if you want it, or wait. No need for a thesis on GPU purchasing choices.

        You have just posted what everyone has known for over a year.

  • Think of gpu like a pyramid scheme, mining is the reward that baits people to join the party

    The well will eventually run dry, and the last to enter will get rekt

    This is pretty much crypto in a nutshell

    • -1

      Sure, but I was trying to make a bigger point.

      • -1

        Though if you want a gpu but don't buy it because price is high, then you're just an idiot

      • but I was trying to make a bigger point.

        You failed.

    • Can say the same for property these days.

  • To try to get this on the rails again (and to amuse myself on the 2nd last day of house arrest), I'll add this further contribution:

    Google Marshmellow experiment and the follow up research. Fascinating. Those willing to defer instant gratification have significantly better life outcomes. It's a better predictor of career success and earnings than things like parental socio-economic group and education.

    • -1

      Btw, it is “marshmallow experiment”.

      Your reaction time to rebut others, seems to validate the hypothesis.

      • You seem to be putting a lot of energy into a post you claim not to have read. More interested in the trolling opportunity perhaps?

    • +1

      Thankyou, I just realised why I never got promoted at work, all that masturbating at my desk - too much instant gratification.

      • Funny and you got the point.

  • +2

    Like they always say, early bird gets the worm. It's not greed, it's an opportunity to better themselves. You don't always win in life and you shouldn't be losing in life either.

    • Not my point. In fact the opposite of my point. Google Marshmellow Experiment.

      • +1

        You're more an early worm kind of guy?

        Jokes aside, I liked the post. Though I'm not 100% sure your correct in your hypothesis. GPU manufacturers may invest (money is cheap) but supply chains are still shot and mining is not the sole usecase for GPUs. Another trend is AI/ML and of course everyone gaming at home.

        • +1

          Thanks. Agreement not expected. Polite and intelligent response appreciated.

  • I almost finished OP before realising that it was all ranting.

    TL;DR
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk

  • TL;DR

    I'm sure the Whirlpool forum members would appreciate this weighty tome.

  • -1

    Looks like the first marshmallow crowd is in.

    • I would try to avoid any intellectual debates on this site. There are way too many ignorant morons. A sad reflection on Australia imo.

      • -2

        Thanks. Lesson learned.

      • +8

        The issue is that the original post is hardly “intellectual” - it’s just a barely coherent rant with touches of pseudo pop psychology, along with the a few irrelevant anecdotes.

        FWIW, I think that the entire premise is based on the assumption that the GPU shortage is purely due to mining, which I think is completely bogus for two reasons - (i) there’s an industry-wide chip shortage that has affected the supply chain of various other tech products (e.g. the launch of the M1X MBPs being pushed back), and even appliances and cars, (ii) even with the launch of the new LHR GPUs, they’ve not settled down in price anywhere near the MSRPs. Nvidia have only really been producing LHR GPUs for months at this stage.

        Whilst I’ve no doubt that mining is contributing to the GPU shortage, it’s not the main driver.

        • Have reading comprehension levels fallen that low?

  • +2

    Point is not in the OP…
    It's in their rebuttal comments 🎣

  • +3

    If your assumption that crypto miners are the main cause for GPU supply issues, I think you're overestimating the effect of miners on the market.

    From how I understand, it's just a whole collection of everything happening at once…. The largest effect is covid related supply chain issues, massive increase in consumer demand for electronics in general and the 2 to 3 year span of time it takes to set up new chip manufacturing plants. The largest microchip company, TSMC is spending 100 billion on new facilities to increase output. Intel is spending something like 60 billion to make chips in the US. The list goes on, but it takes time for this to happen.

    Crypto miners have been going stupid nuts for a lot longer than this recent GPU shortage. I think it's a the storm in a teacup. If you can wait until the end of 2022 to pick up a video card (new 40x series is due by then and the numbers look promising), you'll probably save some cash or at least get a better bang for your buck. That's assuming the market behaves. People have proven to be willing to spend big dollars on video cards. Without price competition (Yes, Intel and some chinese company are bringing out a line of video cards) we might find these companies are happy to pocket the increases instead of pass them on to consumers.

    • I'm not disagreeing with you, but I was trying to lead from that into a bigger point, put too allegorically for this group in the last 2 paragraphs. It concerns instant gratification. Bigger still point, not articulated (Tertiary Level education, Do Read) is how this will intersect with the imminent economic Tsunami.

      • +3

        Your argument has failed to take account of what has happened to the miners in China. It is now illegal to mine in China or trade in most crypto currencies. Given that China was the top mining country, the price of GPUs should have fallen if the miners were the main cause.

        The chip shortage has impacted the car industry, they simply can make the cars for lack of chips. The price of new and second hard vehicles have gone up.

        The chip shortage has impacted on so many devices. It is very difficult to buy a Raspberry Pi and the price of many microcontrollers has tripled.

      • Delayed gratification benefits works in some circumstances, and fails miserably in other circumstances. It's contextual.

        It works well in some forms of education. It tends to work well in saving and investment but not always. Those who invested in stamps and coins know what I mean.

        It works poorly in bargain hunting…. or more in form with the current thread, if you waited for initial prices for the 30x series to reduce over 3070/3060 models, those who acted fast were rewarded and those who delayed gratification were severely punished.

        • The ones punished are those who delayed then proceeded anyway. The rest will be further along towards home ownership, their own business or just driving a better car than you. If we're talking top tier cards, even more so.

      • +1

        You and boogerman would get along well, two pseuds with incredibly high opinions of themselves.

  • +2

    Your whole rant gets undone by assuming it's the miners causing the stock shortages….because it's not.

    Also people spending an extra $1000 on a GPU does nothing to someones future or wealth. The Government has provided hand outs and assets are being inflated all around. Also what could have been spend on a holiday/night out is now being spent on home entertainment. Again does not affect ones wealth nor imply greed etc

  • +1

    Waiting for Australia and US to ban cryptocurrency.

    • I hope so too. The Kimchi premium will send the price of digital assets up to the moon.

  • +1

    It's not like say toasters, where you only need one and are only likely to buy one. If miners can make a profit out of a GPU..

    If I could make a profit using a toaster, I'd buy more toasters too.

    • If I could make a profit using a toaster, I'd buy more toasters too.

      You could sell toast. Open a toast food truck.


  • 📅

  • $200 eBay second-hand purchase

    At Christmas.

    U WOT M8?

    Surely you meant Christmas 2023 right?

  • Not what I said. I said that I would content myself for now with that card (and did) and hold off (for something better) until after Christmas.

    Other things I didn't say:

    1. That there is a GPU shortage. There isn't. According to the discord servers, I can this minute buy any number of cards, albeit at a price I'm not willing to pay. What we do have is a price benchmark being set by one sector of the market, for whom the product has a premium value.

    2. That miners are the sole cause of the "shortage". I spoke of miners as one factor which I consider temporary. Obviously its more complex.

    3. That it's greedy to spend an extra thousand dollars on a GPU. I don't consider that greed. I consider that poor judgement, but knock yourself out if that's what you want to do. The greed I referred to was trying to invest in something after the party is over.

    Over the years, I have seen innumerable clients devastated by mistiming investments. My view, but stating something which I think has been obvious for at least 12 months, is that right now we need to be pivoting, retiring debt and saving. I think most people have no idea how many businesses are on life support right now and how the worst of the fallout from the lock downs is yet to hit us, leaving me pretty unsympathetic to those who think their biggest problem is getting the latest GPU.

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