AMD’s share price is soaring thanks to an influx of hardware purchases from Ethereum miners.
Share prices for the technology firm jumped 11 percent after they announced earnings on July 25. Over the past 12 months, the Intel competitor’s share price has seen a dramatic 152 percent increase. Many are attributing the rise in demand for computing technology to sales made by cryptocurrency miners, who demand excessive amounts of computing power to complete mining tasks.
Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, confirmed rumors that cryptocurrency demands were driving the company’s recent good fortune when she cited the “elevated demand” for their products, specifically graphics cards called GPUs, from those mining Ethereum.
Marco Streng, the CEO of Genesis Mining, which mines Ether, claimed that time is a major factor for miners mainly because the time that isn’t spent mining means less money earned for a firm or individual.
“When building our data centers, we have the highest priority on time,” Streng said in an interview. “Time counts so much. We are using the fastest delivery possible. You risk the opportunity to mine for the days you are delayed. If you are deploying ten days later, you are losing ten days of mining—that is the cost.”
Streng added that there is an increased incentive to mine cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. Because the cost of mining technology has remained constant while the rewards for participating in mining tasks has risen, more and more people are considering establishing a mining system in their home or at their business.
“Everyone began to realize this and wanted to get GPUS to get mining. This created an absolute shortage in the market,” Streng added. “The mining gear has a certain price. And suddenly the price of coins goes from $10 to $400—so a factor of 40. The mining return has gone up by 40 but the hardware is still the same cost. This creates an incredible economic incentive for people to start mining.”
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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