Many players should be happy about that: The prices for cryptocurrencies have recently fallen steadily – and with them the prices for graphics cards. However, there is still a long way to go to noticeably lower costs for GPUs.
Graphics cards are more expensive than ever, also due to the boom in cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which picked up a lot of speed about a year ago. However, important mining courses have been falling for a few weeks – and this is apparently also having an impact on GPU prices.
Before we take a closer look at the specific figures and prices as well as their development, two important points: On the one hand, the medium to long-term development of the volatile crypto prices is difficult to predict. On the other hand, the high mining prices are just one factor among many that contribute to the extreme prices and scarcity of graphics cards.
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Scarce GPUs: Nvidia is surprisingly optimistic
After all, Nvidia is giving generally positive signals in terms of availability for the second half of the year and the release of the new RTX 4000 cards expected at the end of 2022. You can find out more about this in the article in the link box above. As the figures in this article show, it is also very desirable from a player’s point of view that the recent fall in cryptocurrency prices continues.
Crypto courses: It’s finally going down again
In mid-November 2021, both Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new all-time highs, albeit in different dimensions. Bitcoin stood at almost 60,000 dollars, Ethereum at almost 4,200 dollars. Since then, prices have been falling steadily.
They are currently even as low as they were last about six months ago. However, there would still be a long way to go before the significantly lower values from the end of 2020.
Irrespective of this, the parallelism in which the two curves largely run is remarkable: if Bitcoin is doing well or badly, this also applies to Ethereum and vice versa. To a lesser extent, this also applies to the prices of current graphics cards.
The trend is also positive for graphics cards
The following graphic shows on the one hand the development of the Ethereum price at certain highs and lows over the course of the last year. On the other hand, the approximate costs for Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3080 and AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT can be seen in the same period. The trend is always in the same direction:
The Nvidia card in particular benefited from the falling Ethereum price. While the RTX 3080 changed hands on eBay for an average of almost 1,800 dollars in November, the costs have now fallen by almost 300 dollars. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about the cost of the RX 6800 XT.
Hope with asterisks: From a player’s point of view, it is gratifying that crypto prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks. In order to have a (more) noticeable positive effect on the prices of graphics cards, we believe that this trend would have to continue for at least months.
Another possible hope for lower graphics card prices in this context is the change from the computationally intensive Proof-of-Work to the Proof-of-Stake method in Ethereum. He will largely take graphics cards out of the game for mining this currency.
When exactly the time has come remains to be seen in the course of several postponements. To current information on ethereum.org it should be ready in the second quarter of 2022. Let’s hope that’s really the case.
How do you assess the situation? Are cryptocurrency prices finally going down for the long haul, or is this just another short-term low? And if they continue to fall, how much can that bring graphics card prices down? Write your predictions in the comments!
