Ethereum at $ 3000
The global shortage of semiconductors continues to have severe effects on the pockets and markets of technology and automotive. The forecasts for a possible end to the crisis are not rosy: according to ArsTechnica we will have to wait until 2022, while Ford and Volkswagen fear that the situation could worsen further. Despite the alarm and the price increases, the PC market got off to a good start in Q1 2021. What is the cause of this dyscrasia and how does it affect GPUs?The global supply of GPUs was already struggling with Covid-19 and the sudden buoyancy of demand for electronic products, but the real “Coup de grace” was given by the requests for graphics cards for mining. Cryptocurrency mining is not necessarily an illegal activity, although some states have chosen to restrict farms and control trading activities - the last of these countries, after China and India, is Turkey. It is the desire to speculate on cryptocurrencies and to exploit a "gray zone" that is complicating the lives of users, buying up the few GPUs available, and also has serious effects on the climate, cities and so on, as in the case of severe blackouts in Iran. WindowsCentral reports that Ethereum has surpassed the value of $ 3,000 per unit, so there is fear of a further worsening of the current shortage of semiconductors. The value of Ethereum reached the milestone of $ 3,000 in about 9 months: a steady increase since July 2020, when it reached the value of $ 2,000 per unit.
According to the English site, the constant growth in value of Ethereum makes this cryptocurrency particularly desirable, further increasing the demand for GPUs to extract it. The reactions to the phenomenon are profoundly different: Nvidia, after a few missteps, seems to have a plan. On the one hand, in fact, it is placing limits on mining on the next gaming GPUs; on the other hand, it is developing GPUs dedicated to mining, the CMPs. While celebrating the strong results for Q1 2021, AMD has not provided information on the influence of miners on GPU sales. Both Nvidia and AMD, however, are short on hardware and the rush to Ethereum could make it even more difficult to buy the latest GPUs: Nvidia knows something about it, which has once again postponed the release of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.
While waiting to get out of the current shortage, if you want to upgrade your PC we suggest you take a look at our guide to the best GPUs: find tempting suggestions and proposals, suitable for any need and budget.
We advise against it but, if you want to mine from your home, we recommend a wide range of dedicated products on Amazon.
Ethereum Passes Bank of America, Wells Fargo in Market Cap as Crypto Hits $3,000
© Yuriko Nakao/Getty In this photo illustration, a visual representation of digital cryptocurrency Ethereum is arranged on December 17, 2020 in Katwijk, Netherlands.Ethereum, the world's second largest cryptocurrency, passed Bank of America and Wells Fargo in market cap on Monday as the cryptocurrency surpassed $3,000.
According to CoinDesk, Ethereum has a market cap of $360.15 billion, as of publication time. In comparison, data from the New York Stock Exchange shows that Bank of America currently has a market cap of $350.91 billion and Wells Fargo has a market cap of $186.557 billion.
Internet Erupts With 'Dogecoin' Memes Following The Stock Value's Rise
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As Investopedia reported, the market cap of a stock or cryptocurrency refers to a company's outstanding shares of a stock and is calculated 'by multiplying the total number of a company's outstanding shares by the current market price of one share.'
Bank of America declined to comment in response to Newsweek's request.
The news of Ether, the digital token of the Ethereum blockchain, passing two major banks in market cap value comes as the cryptocurrency has soared to a new all-time high on Monday, surpassing $3,000.
According to CoinDesk, Ethereum's price hit $3,302.32 at around 4:41 a.m. ET on Monday and has since stayed above $3,000. As of publication time, the cryptocurrency was trading at around $3,193.34.
Ethereum is slightly different from Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, due to the fact that it 'acts as a fuel that allows smart contracts to run,' while Bitcoin is used as a unit of currency, according to CoinDesk.
'Ether's supply is not capped like that of bitcoin and its supply schedule, often described as minimum necessary to secure the network, is determined by members of Ethereum's community,' CoinDesk wrote in its description of Ethereum.
While speaking with The Street, deVere Group CEO Nigel Green, said, 'Ether is one of the main beneficiaries in the wider explosion in the cryptocurrency market,' and added that 'The boom over recent months has been fueled by soaring interest from major institutional investors and growing recognition that borderless digital currencies are the future of money.'
Just last week, the European Investment Bank announced that it issued 100 million euros in two-year bonds through the Ethereum blockchain.
'On 27 April 2021, the EIB launched a digital bond issuance on a blockchain platform, deploying this distributed ledger technology for the registration and settlement of digital bonds, in collaboration with Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale,' the European Investment Bank wrote in a press release. 'The EIB believes that the digitalisation of capital markets may bring benefits to market participants in the coming years, including a reduction of intermediaries and fixed costs, better market transparency through an increased capacity to see trading flows and identity asset owners, as well as a much faster settlement speed.'
In addition to Ethereum, Bitcoin also rose in price on Monday, and was currently trading at $58,604.76 as of publication, according to CoinDesk.
Newsweek reached out to Wells Fargo for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
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