Chip maker AMD rolled out a new graphics card (GPU) earlier this week – and the product swiftly sold out in minutes.
Tech bloggers closely watched the release of the Vega 56, which was released on popular online marketplaces like Newegg and Ebay on August 28. As expected – given huge demand for GPUs by the world’s cryptocurrency miners – the vast majority of listings were unavailable after the first five minutes.
Also exacerbating the situation are reports that manufacturing issues have led to a constrain on supplies for the new Vega card (which was sold in two varieties) and rumors that distributors may be jacking up the asking price to boost their revenues amid the huge demand.
CoinDesk previously reported that companies like AMD as well as rival GPU maker Nvidia have been moving to capitalize on the influx of GPU buyers who are looking to use the hardware to mine cryptocurrencies like ethereum. Mining is an energy intensive process by which new transactions are added to a blockchain, creating new tokens as a reward int he process.
Even still, AMD isn’t banking on cryptocurrency quite yet, declaring earlier this summer on an earnings call that it didn’t view the tech as a long-term opportunity.
That said, the company has perhaps quietly worked to improve conditions for cryptocurrency miners that use its product, as shown by the release of mining-related software derivers earlier this month.
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