What to do with all that equipment? How some unemployed cryptocurrency miners are now powering generative algorithms
In mid-September, the Ethereum community transitioned its consensus algorithm from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) in a process dubbed The Merge that reduced the power consumption of the Ethereum network by 99. 95%, and sounded the death knell for many blockchain miners. Now, anyone with a few coins, an average computer that could run a basic version of Linux could, simply by consigning a few ethers (thirty-two in theory, but there are services that allow you to put half or a quarter), obtain a virtually risk-free return close to a very attractive 8%.
The consequence was immediate: the large GPU farms destined to solve the complex cryptographic equations characteristic of the proof-of-work no longer had anything to offer to an Ethereum network that didn’t needed them any longer, and had to find other things to do. Some estimates suggest that, at its peak, Ethereum mining came to support more than a million people using equipment valued at $10 billion.
