What could be the next step of Crypto Miners ?

After the high note with that crypto ended 2017, 2018 has been a dour reminder that crypto markets stay unpredictable at best. From its peak at nearly $20,000 in December, bitcoin spent most of 2018 in a steady decline. Today, bitcoin’s worth is nearer to $3,000, and therefore the tumble has caused a ripple impact that has affected each stakeholder in the market.

Crypto miners, who depend on the worth of bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies to stay high enough to remain profitable, are currently left holding the bag in additional ways than one: pricy mining rigs and GPUs price thousands, and the bitcoin they’ve mined  with these tools. currently that costs have remained solidly below break-even rates for many months, miners must reflect on whether they will continue bankrolling increasingly expensive operations or they should simply cut their losses and run.

However  the easy cost of building these rigs—from buying and replacing components to procuring good enough GPUs to be effective—makes leaving the game a tough question. Even so, some miners are looking not to abandon their existing setups, however rather pivot them into one thing profitable whereas the market adjust to its new reality. With some innovative alternatives out there, miners could shortly shed their crypto shackles and diversify operations.

Mining at a Loss

In early December, bitcoin blockchain observers noticed  that the original cryptocurrency’s hash difficulty had dropped by over 15th, the second-largest such contraction since October 2011. The difficulty is about dynamically, and it responds to actual fluctuations in hash rates, therefore a drop mirrors the activity on the network. Indeed, since November, Bitcoin’s hash rate has dropped by over 30th, reflective an exodus of miners from the market. The reason for this mass flight is the continued drop of mining revenues, that is almost halved in December from November’s levels.

The short-run outlook isn't optimistic, either. Despite the passion of some bullish industry observers, smaller miners are faced with a very real crisis right now, and therefore the promise of future worth bumps might not be enough to stay all of them operating on the bitcoin blockchain. For miners, energy, resources, and different overheads mean that running at a loss isn't favorable in any situation. Despite miners seeing $4.7 billion in revenues in 2018, smaller mining operations cannot carry on with larger setups that have slowly centralized control of the market.  

Instead  several smaller miners is also wanting to create a soft landing elsewhere while not having to dump the instrumentality they’ve already purchased and are on the hook for. the matter with reselling is that several of the GPUs and ASIC processors used have vital wane them, and also the inflated market during which they were purchased has come to earth, heavily poignant element costs.

Some miners are looking to not abandon their existing setups, however rather pivot them into something profitable whereas the market adjust to its new reality. With some innovative alternatives out there, miners might soon shed their crypto shackles and diversify operations.

Branching Out

The one commodity most miners need to offer, should they choose to move far from mining, is raw computing and processor power. The increasing complexity of hashing and verifying blocks implies that most mining rigs today have gigabytes of computational power that may be utilized in many ways—especially since much of it comes from GPUs and not CPUs. This appears abstract, however a recent uptick in the need for heavy computing capacity stemming from emerging technology has created it a much additional possible reality. Technology like AI, machine learning, and neural networks need considerably additional raw power than single computers offers at affordable costs. Instead, many companies, both on the blockchain and off, have began to concentrate on renting out computing power to organizations and users in need.

On blockchain, there are many projects taking a novel approach to the computation drawback. Tatau, as an example, is looking to cut back the cost of super-computing by leveraging blockchain GPU networks. The company’s platform lets users monetize their existing surplus GPU capability and rent it to individuals who want it. The company is targeted on AI, a notoriously resource-intensive technology that's nonetheless becoming vital to several fields. For miners who continue to shut down their rigs and operations, the shift to computing power would take seconds and will be a decent alternative for times once mining becomes unprofitable.

Others have also offered similar solutions though with different areas of focus. Leonardo Render, as an example, focuses a lot of heavily on providing computing power for graphics work and 3D modeling. The company is also more focused on providing a ready-made solution, as it has contracted the services of a GPU farm to bolster its initial launch. Golem offers computing capability for a range of work though it's aimed largely at more academic projects. However, in all cases, the utilization of blockchain means miners can simply convert their operations back and forth, that means they can be ready to get back in the game should crypto costs bounce back.

Diversify or Sink

The reality for crypto miners is that whereas the market remains volatile, so will their fortunes. While it should be extremely profitable to continue mining in a bull market, the extended period of losses the industry is experiencing makes it hard to generate revenues. Moreover, the status quo favors larger miners who can buffer their prices and stay operational even in downturns.

For smaller miners, the answer of survival might rest on their ability to diversify their computing power without having to declare their expenses and efforts a sunk value. By finding projects and platforms that benefit of their existing tools, miners can weather the ongoing storm and still be ready for a future where crypto bounces back.