Ethereum miners alone have reportedly spent about $15 billion on graphics cards in the past 18 months. That figure doesn't include gpus that gamers use for gaming and mining, as they try to recoup some of the cost of their expensive graphics cards. The figures also do not include the cost of cpus, motherboards, Psus and other components needed for mining equipment. The data comes from Bitpro Consulting, a company that specializes in buying and refurbishing cryptocurrency mining hardware.
At the end of 2020, the price of many cryptocurrencies rose sharply, causing millions of people to flood retail stores and online stores to buy graphics cards to mine Ethereum with the aim of making a quick buck. At the same time, AMD and NVIDIA have introduced their new generation of Gpus, which feature huge performance improvements over their predecessors, making many gamers want to upgrade. The rest of the story is familiar: demand far outstrips supply, sending prices skyrocketing, and rampant hardware scalpers exacerbating the problem. The average premium attached to graphics cards jumped from just over $400 in 2019 to nearly $800 last year, according to Jon Peddie Research.
Early entrants to the mining industry have profited handsomely from their investments. However, ethereum's value has fallen by more than 80% since its peak last year, leaving many struggling to recoup their costs. Bloomberg reports that one man has so far earned only $5,000 worth of cryptocurrency from his $30,000 hardware investment.
GPU miners will no longer be able to mine cryptocurrencies in this environmentally unfriendly way after Ethereum switches to proof-of-equity mode, a move developers claim will happen in August, though it could be delayed again.