The future of GPU (video card) mining,,, In Plain English

[sundownz]

GPU mining is stupid. All this electricity and heat generated so a few of us can profit from a digital currency that does not exist. It's really ridiculous when you think about it. But a lot of the world is ridiculous. Central banks print money and 75% of the world lives in poverty. So as stupid as GPU mining is, it's just building on the stupidity that already exists.

With that said, the future of GPU is not going away but it should transform. GPU companies are going to cash in and they should but they can develop products that are more efficient at what they do on the consumer level. I think what the OP wants to know, is what is the future of GPU mining when Ethereum goes POS:

1. People will switch to mining another coin, since it won't be nowhere near as profitable, it won't last long and we'll get a big GPU sell off
2. The big sell off will eventually be a positive to those who hung in there. How much of a positive? Impossible to know.
3. As time passes, another (profitable) GPU mineable coin will emerge that needs people to mine and build the network.

GPU mining is building an infrastructure. Right now the majority of that infrastructure is supporting Ethereum. This will switch to something else. Crypto was just born, it's hard to know what will happen tomorrow, let alone next month.

"just building on the stupidity that already exists"

LOL

Could be a slogan for a company or politician...maybe President Camacho

I have to commend you on the President Camacho reference -- two thumbs up!

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I have gotten heavy into GPU mining (around $60k in hardware)... but I do very little Etherium (Dagger). I sold 75% of my AMD cards on e-bay for 50-100% premiums after using them for 30-60 days and bought a bunch of GTX-1060s & 1080s.

I feel like they have enough time left in them mining *something* to pay themselves off and then some. I'm already to 50% of my hardware paid off so, frankly, I'm not sweating much.

As far as the OP... yes when Etherium mining ends it will hit other Alts pretty hard... but I get the feeling we still have a fair amount of time and if you mine / hold a bit with coin appreciation you will come out good (that's my bet anyway).

PS: With the cost premium of the 1080Ti I've been sticking to 1060s... I have a single 1080Ti and it doesn't really blow me away by any means for the cost. I can get almost four 1060s for the same price.

[bravetheheat]

You will have a lot of other choices, I think. ETH is not the only choice for GPU mining, even not the best one.

If you don't want to mine ETH, you can still mine ETC.

If ETC is not so profitable, you can mine Zcash, XMR, SIGT.

Nowadays, new coins trend to design ASIC-resistant POW algorithm, if POW is still popular, or it's dominant in coin distribution, there are still other choice for GPU mining.

What I really care about is the trend of POS and POW, or the hybrid of both, which will be popular or may affect GPU minng

[Jdope]

I don't really think mining is going to die anytime soon, but it'll get a hell of a lot tougher when eth goes PoS, Eth is currently not the most profitable for a lot of cards but A LOT of gpus are still on eth, once eth goes pos they are going to flood every other coin and there things could get a little bumby

[gzubeck]

Transition to the POS will not pass quickly, only the estimated time from one and a half years, and at first they said that the transition is planned this year.
Perhaps all this will also be delayed for some time. Planning for this activity is something for the years ahead, when things change very quickly, this seems to make little sense.

I'm going to say it here...it might not even happen...etherium moving to proof of stake. If they get the inflation rate under control and they improve proof of work algorithm why do they need proof of stake? Proof of stake will be centralized in a few powerful hands and it will require a huge reserve of coins being tied up in someones wallet. Bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin cash, monero, zcash, zencash, ubiq, eth classic etc. will still continue to be proof of work. etherium will be truly living in its own bubble if it migrates to proof of stake...

[leslie4u]

Agreeing to what other mentioned in this thread, mining calls in for good amount of investment, maintenance and other things to make sure that you still have working rigs/cards or whatever. POS works out lot better and is more efficient way of generating coins. With mining, you need to keep switching gears to find the right coin to get good returns or else you won't even be able to cover the electricity cost.

Most of my pals who mine ETH, do not know what's the next coin they will mine when ETH hits POS. They say they will think about it when time comes, for now they continue to mine ETH.

[gzubeck]

Agreeing to what other mentioned in this thread, mining calls in for good amount of investment, maintenance and other things to make sure that you still have working rigs/cards or whatever. POS works out lot better and is more efficient way of generating coins. With mining, you need to keep switching gears to find the right coin to get good returns or else you won't even be able to cover the electricity cost.

Most of my pals who mine ETH, do not know what's the next coin they will mine when ETH hits POS. They say they will think about it when time comes, for now they continue to mine ETH.

Proof of stake is not as secure as proof of work. there are a lot of negatives with proof of stake and it ties up a ton of coins. does anybody have an estimate on how many coins are going to be tied up with pos?

[Sileni]

The idea of mining is sound, so I can't imagine it'll ever truly become impossible to profit. We'll just be moving to new currencies, or the next valuable distributed farm technology will come up. I find it hard to believe we won't find another use for the massive number of calculations the world can put out at the moment.

[gzubeck]

The idea of mining is sound, so I can't imagine it'll ever truly become impossible to profit. We'll just be moving to new currencies, or the next valuable distributed farm technology will come up. I find it hard to believe we won't find another use for the massive number of calculations the world can put out at the moment.

golem is another option as well. thats another distributed mining option where you get paid to let others process images and such...if etherium goes proof of stake well have 1000  million dollar corporate nodes instead of individual miners...is it a good or bad thing? who knows...