Bitcoin has at best 5 years left until quantum computers just destroy the cryptography they use, so they are right to look for an escape.
I just wish they realized how futile this all is.
Major Bitcoin mining firm pivoting to AI, plans to fully abandon crypto mining by 2027 as miners convert to AI en masse — Bitfarm to leverage 341 megawatt capacity for AI following $46 million Q3 loss
Submitted 4 months ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
termaxima@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
Tja@programming.dev 4 months ago
Quantum computers don’t destroy the cryptography, as long as you follow best practices and don’t reuse addresses.
hark@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If only there were a way to combine the two, then we could keep an even larger bubble going.
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Wasting electricity that was already being wasted isn’t as bad as wasting electricity that was being used for something productive, I guess.
djsp@feddit.org 4 months ago
Surplus electricity would lower bills for both households, which have been particularly affected by rising prices, and different industries which have also had to contend with AI for capital.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
This isbprobably a philosophical question that i dont know the answer to, but its still a waste.
kubofhromoslav@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Crypto mining is (mostly?) total waste… Proof of Work by doing hard but useless calculations and using it as kind of currency is like travelers on a desert world use water as a currency - but by intentionally spilling it 🤦🏻♂️
Great cryptocurrencies does not need power hungry hardware. Eg. Nano (XNO) have a secure network error or using around 17 000 000 times less energy per transaction.
Psythik@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Couldn’t agree more. Proof of Stake is the future of crypto.
etherphon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Can we switch back to the need based economy instead of the greed based economy?
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Which economy was that? We’ve had greed for hundreds of years, if not many thousands.
etherphon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sure, but it will have to change eventually, we can’t keep pumping out more and more throwaway shit year after year, there will be a critical mass, or maybe we just die buried in our own garbage.
Avicenna@programming.dev 4 months ago
most grifters like Trump and Elon are in both
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
As one grift’s hype cycle fades, shift to another one.
leastaction@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Hey, now that we have this obscene energy-wasting capability, let’s see what other ways there are to generate equally obscene profits!
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
At least they’re pivoting instead of just doing both.
beemikeoak@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
I’d like some bit coin to make millions please!
Sure! I can make a bit coin for you! .
phaedrus@piefed.world 4 months ago
Ahh, so this is where the concept of "rollover minutes" went, into bubbles
jaykrown@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The difference between AI and Bitcoin is that people actually use AI to do productive things.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
I feel like the biggest difference is that crypto actually exists and functions as advertised.
jaykrown@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Advertised to do what? Nothing? Seems like crypto is working then yea.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 4 months ago
So there’s no difference.
jaykrown@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You know absolutely nothing about blockchain technology or LLMs if you actually believe that.
Prior_Industry@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Lost all your money on Bored Apes, now generated your own!
kibiz0r@midwest.social 4 months ago
I hate this timeline so much
Zier@fedia.io 4 months ago
Abandon the bitcoin scam, full steam ahead for the AI scam!!!
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Major Bitcoin mining firm pivoting to AI
one shady grift for another
addie@feddit.uk 4 months ago
especially if you have the infrastructure in place
I thought Bitcoin mining made no sense at all on GPUs any more? Unless you were ASICs then the power costs just weren’t worth it, and application-specific is part of the acronym, there. Why would these things even be able to run an LLM?
In any case, Bitcoin just needs to iterate as fast as possible in order to find a match, doesn’t really need a lot of RAM. Whereas LLMs need really large amounts - NVIDIA’s latest data centre racks have about a terabyte for a reason. Even if you had cornered the market on GPUs five years ago for Bitcoin, what use are those cards for this?
squaresinger@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Mining hardware is shortlived. These things get outdated real fast and need to be replaced frequently. So what they do is when a mining rig is up for replacement, they just swap it out for an AI rig.
The real asset for mining is the infrastructure: rack space, access to cheap electricity, data centers. All of that is very useful for AI as well.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Some of these bought decommissioned power plants like old coal plants, so they’re getting wholesale prices for energy.
dhork@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If I read the article property, the real asset is the rackspace and power they are already leasing. They would tear out the existing Bitcoin mining infrastructure and replace it with AI servers.
jj4211@lemmy.world 4 months ago
One this is all speak to convince investors to throw money, so they’ll cheer pick their interpretation.
In this case I think they refer to already having the real estate, buildings, power and cooling. So “all” they have to do is rip out their rigs and dump a bunch of nVidia gear in. All they need is just a few hundred million from some lucky investors and they will be off…
Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
I think you misunderstand that scene. Bitcoin miners are crazy rich and most of them are investors in their own right. They don’t need outside money.
ook@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
I don’t get it. What are they even seling then? Bitcoins I understand, but AI? Just enabling scams?
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Data centre capacity, they seem to be making an emphasis on access to independent power sources.
markz@suppo.fi 4 months ago
Yeah, I’d expect there to be some real overlap between crypto and ai bros.
flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Some overlap? It’s like 90%
0ndead@infosec.pub 4 months ago
“Scammers find new scam”
real_squids@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Hey now, at least bitcoin has it’s uses. And if you have a farm for it I doubt you’re scamming on the side, that’s risky.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 4 months ago
AI has more uses than Bitcoin, the fuck is this circlejerk, lmao
OwlPaste@lemmy.world 4 months ago
How would they make money from ai? be like chatgpt and release their own ai plans or something? or something else?
0ndead@infosec.pub 4 months ago
TFW when you realize AI is bullshit
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Make no mistake; the people selling server time will be making money. They are selling a real product to a real customer, it’s just the customer is a tech company that will never make money back in turn.
jj4211@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Same way a lot of the “ai” companies make money, investors that have no idea but want to get in on the ground floor of the next nVidia or openai.
BlueKey@fedia.io 4 months ago
Maybe host open source models and offer payed access for customers who need big generating capacities.
6nk06@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Subscriptions for waifus?
Robin@lemmy.world 4 months ago
OpenRouter is a marketplace for AI inference
Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 4 months ago
In theory you could lease your server capacity to the big AI players, but then they would have to trust you -a noted crypto grifter - with their data.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Fucking greedheads.