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I don't think this is quite srsbsns enough for the Serious Debate section but I'm arbitrarily miffed about cryptocurrency mining right now. The prices of GPUs are fuuuuuucked due to assholes obsessed with wildly-fluctuating monopoly money with little mainstream adoption snapping them up so they can get more of their wacky non-legal tender, most of which isn't even useful for buying drugs, and that really irritates me as someone who just wants to fucking goom and has limited access to money. Not to mention the issue of power usage and inefficient blockchain processing algorithms making mining rigs a hazard to the environment too.

I'm one more increase in PC graphics processing requirements away from going full John Brown, storming the nearest crypto mining facility with an AR-15, and starting a violent GPU liberation movement and calling it the OpenGLiberation Front

Oh, aaaaaand! The new non-fungible token craze has the potential to be pretty harmful for Internet artists overall, considering anyone can make a token out of anything without the consent of the original creator of a piece of artwork and there's no meaningful way to dispute authorship of the artwork that has been tokenized, thus meaning someone can get wealthy off of someone else's property (given the outrageous prices NFTs have been going for) without having even put in an iota of honest work and without properly compensating the original artist.
As if I needed more reason to hate the crypto-cunts, now they're engaging in Reddit meme subreddit tactics.

The environmental hazard alone makes me despise cryptocurrencies. Of course, all money is nonsense that the ruling class made up as a means of forcing the common people into working more anyway.

I think "cryptocurrency" is no longer an apt term for what is alternative non-national currency that is being increasingly adopted by online marketplaces. Many countries and many financial institutions are exploring working with "cryptos". In a way this could be a good thing. It's not nearly the kind of ecological problem people make it out to be. NVIDIA is creating an exclusive chip set for crypto mining, and over all the demand outpacing supply is a prime opportunity for markets to innovate and develop new powerful processors. Indeed Samsung is entering into developing better and more powerful processors, and a major Japanese company GMO Internet Inc 12 nanometer Fin FET Compact semiconductor chip for its next-generation of cryptocurrency miners.

Gaming has been one of the largest bread and butter industries for companies like NVIDIA to continue development and innovation of stronger and better chips. This comes from the demand from players wanting better graphics, which in turn creates a clear demand for greater innovation and development. This has been a good thing!

Similarly, now that crypto-mining is becoming an increasingly wide industry it is also pushing strong demand for better chip innovation. And many new entries into the market place, and more competition is generally a good thing, it leads to better products, often cheaper, and more availability. Yes, there is currently a shortage, but that shortage is a prime opportunity for entrepreneurial innovation.

I understand the frustration of not being able to get yourself a hold of the latest most powerful chip, but in the big-picture, and not even that much of a long-term, this is a really good thing for better – more affordable – hardware.

I don't really care about what people do with their GPUs, they can make AI generated Shrek x Angelina Jolie scat porn for all I care.

The problems I have aren't really with the miners, they're with chip manufacturers failing to increase production to demand (the silicon shortage is to the point where automakers can't put out cars due to a lack of chip production), retailers not being willing or able to properly implement or enforce one-per-customer rules on high demand products, and environmental policies failing in general (do I need to scream build nuclear plants until I'm blue in the face?)

I'm with you on the whole building nuclear power plants solution. And I have nothing against crypto mining itself, but I saw this video on twitter that in the middle of nowhere, a guy had set up an entire operation just for bitcoin mining.

https://twitter.com/lohstroh/status/1358789181170941953

When it gets to that point, things have gone too far.

Fucking thank you
seriously with how much power is used we need nuclear like yesterday
but of course big oil will never let that happen

If they could do that in a sustainable, carbon neutral way, I wouldn't care. The problem is they have zero incentive to do so.