Bitcoin miners long ago moved up from GPU mining to ASIC mining in response to algorithm difficulty. But GPU mining still gets the job done for Litecoin’s algorithm, and a number of outlets are reporting a shortage of Radeon GPU graphic cards.
This could be coincidence, or there could be a real correlation.
The Litecoin mining has taken off in recent months, with the currency’s hashrate doubling in the last month. It’s hashing difficulty followed suit.
Still, that hashrate is perfectly suitable for GPU mining (the ease of mining is one of Litecoin’s differentiating factors, after all), and Litecoin miners tend to favor AMD Radeon graphics cards for the job.
According to Jon Peddie Research - "Litecoin miners aren’t even close to making much of an impact on AMD’s overall shipments.”
So, maybe it’s just coincidence.
Still, if any would-be Litecoin miners out there are having trouble finding Radeon cards, there might be hope.
Anyone mining Bitcoin with a standard x86 processor and a few Radeons on a cheap motherboard would only stand to gain a whopping electricity bill.
Such a setup might work for Litecoin miners, though. Perhaps they could even get their hands on some 2011-era Bitcoin miners that used GPUs. Those would be no good to Bitcoin miners today, so maybe there are deals to be had on technology that already paid for itself a couple of times over.
