Ethereum and Bitcoin are recovering – which is bad news for gamers

techradar.com:

Cheap graphics cards could once again be at risk of inflation as popular cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin have started to rise in value again rapidly this weekend, following on from the wider cryptomarket crash a few weeks back. As reported by Coindesk(opens in new tab), both Bitcoin and Ethereum have seen their first increase this weekend since June's market crash, with Bitcoin climbing to 5% (though it's worth remembering that said crash wiped 34% off its value) and Ethereum reaching a massive 20% increase in the same period. While this is great news for anyone who still has investments in any of the currencies bouncing back, this recovery does potentially mean that we could see GPU prices start to soar if cryptomining becomes viable again. Bitcoin is less of an issue in that it's not really possible to effectively mine the coin using a consumer graphics card, but as it's the most valuable and established cryptocurrency on the market, its health does usually have a knock-on effect with other coins.

Ethereum on the other hand is a potential threat to the relatively affordable period we've reached with the GPU market. Despite promises to move over to the same 'proof-of-stake' validation that's used by Bitcoin (a system that uses randomly selected miners to validate transactions), the currency still uses 'proof-of-work' (a competitive validation method that can be exploited by miners).

An easier way to think of it is that proof-of-work allows miners around the world trying to be the first to solve a 'math puzzle', and whoever is the first to do so gets to update the blockchain and is rewarded with a small percentage of crypto. The people with access to hardware with a greater hash rate (a measure of the