At the end of last year I built a PC. Those of you who
follow my blogs will know this, and for those interested parties you
can’t miss them if you look in the recent archives. Today’s topic relates to,
and impacted very much upon, that project. I can no more tell you the future of today's topic than the next person, but I can say that if I’d have waited by
even as little as a month or so longer there’s a good chance that it would still be a wishlist. At the heart of the enthusiast market which relies so heavily
upon the GPU, lies the issue of cryptocurrency mining. I thought I might weigh
in on this and even try to avoid using the word 'scourge', however appropriate it may feel because really it’s not the cryptocurrency itself that is
predominantly to blame for this disastrous turn of events. As is so often the
case with human constructs, it seems to be more to do with the attitudes
underlying its usage. I have little interest in mining myself because I don’t
tend to be that concerned with the world of money and wealth at large. I’m not
everyone though and there seem to be plenty of people jumping on a bandwagon,
which for all manner of traditional economics has caused a serious instability
in the pricing and availability of GPU’s the world over.
I’ll begin by saying that there are far better qualified
people out there who can talk about the minutiae. What
I can say is that cryptocurrency’s heart lies in the concept of decentralisation
and separation from the traditional controls of the world banking system.
Whether that is presently a good thing long term probably can't be called now, but there are clues in the philosophy. I find it ironic
that most immediate positive feelings towards it in society appears to be a reflex to the problems which irresponsible
bankers brought upon their profession, since it now it seems to be the same virus
which is playing out in the computing fraternity. You see on the one hand I can
appreciate the miners desire to take advantage of something which is out there,
even if I don’t happen to agree with the underlying motivation. The main arguments seem to boil down to “why not?”. In a buyer’s market people are free to
do as they please and if the tech and the will is out there, why can they not buy all the cards they want and mine to their heart’s content? People
have a right to make money, right? On the other side of the fence are the
gaming and productivity enthusiasts who cannot buy a graphics card at a
sensible market price, with cards currently running at double (and often more) the
RRP and typical market price, or in some cases even buy at all when
availability is compromised by the miners snapping them all up. The price I
paid for my card was enough to be honest, and currently that same card typically
sits about £60 or so over that! It’s easy to understand why the enthusiast
community is so pissed right now, being forced to either hold off on their
beloved project or face paying way over the odds. One of the louder
counterarguments to the enthusiast complaints has been to push back against the
market by simply not buying cards at their current prices, and to protest with the
wallet - refuse to buy GPU’s at the price they’re at and this will force the
GPU manufacturers to respond. Personally I’m not sure what kind of response the
GPU manufacturers would or could give. They could make more GPU’s to try and satisfy
demand if they can get their hands on the raw materials, but at what point
would the market become saturated enough given that the market could swell with
newcomers, and/or miners could go on buying until they themselves had no more money left to
buy more with? The GPU manufacturers don’t really care who they sell their
GPU’s to, miner or enthusiast. In the end it currently falls to whoever can
afford to buy, or is willing to pay, to have their needs met and thus the
problem curls in upon itself.
To see where the real issue is requires you to rise above
both sides. That freedom of choice touted by the mining community is a practical
but unwholesome answer, being something of a linguistic cousin to the same people
who are sowing discontent and division through society with their belief that
more means better. To adopt a stance based upon that is to succumb to the
function of greed, which is the real enemy of the situation, and I’m afraid by
that measure then it really is mainly a lack of respect for the community on
the part of the miners which is funnily enough hurting both parties, in a similar fashion to hysterical
buyers we see running to the stores and clearing shops out of comestibles
before a storm (except that they believe they’re doing it for reasons of survival
and not the acquisition of wealth). Let’s change the analogy from GPU’s to another commodity.. let's say water. If people suddenly started hoarding water you’d end up with a
group of people with a lot of water and many more going with precious little, because
of market expense or actual availability - how or why would you go to the water
service companies to complain? Even if they were inclined, they can’t affect
any meaningful action when the damage is already done. The ones hoarding
the water would just take more anyway yes? I dont see either miners or water hoarders being spontaneously benign. Water may be a necessity where a GPU isn’t, but
the result on a philosophical level is the same. Back to the computer market, and it wouldn’t happen, but if the
GPU manufacturers threw their hands up in the air and stopped making cards that would cause a clusterfuck which might eventually see the redistribution of
existing stocks after the cards were burned out. A better, more simplistic solution would be for us as
consumers and community members to exercise discipline, play fairly and not buy
into rank selfishness. That doesn't factor into our educated habits though.. you know, the same habit that lets politicians get away with so much. In fact I might go further and suggest that on the face
of it, currencies that can be thrown around in such anarchic ways likely can’t work if
the community working with it is no better disciplined than that of a primitive.
If the market chaos cannot be demonstrated to be anything more than infantile
behaviour, then it’s probably indicative that there’s much more work to be done
before society is truly ready for something like cryptocurrency.
