David, Goliath, and Nano

Let’s face it, the GPU market now is in shambles.

I’ve been in the market for a new Nvidia 3080 since November 2020 and every day, I look at GPU prices and gag a little. Cryptocurrency has been a curse on us gamers since its mainstream inception of 2017, and how naive of us to think that it died, just like the rest of the fast-fashion fads of the 21st century.

Now, it’s back, more powerful than ever, and with friends. Kinda reminds me of that one Dark souls’ boss I just couldn’t get past.

Nowadays, new coins like Chia use SSDs for “Proof of Space” mining, increasing SSD prices. Meaning that in the near future, we might even see an SSD crisis in tandem with the GPU one that we are facing today. There will always be a huge demand for hardware to mine crypto as long as there is demand for it. Combining that with chip production shortages, us gamers are fighting tooth and nail against the mining overlords and scalpers.

So, you’ve heard of Bitcoin, but what exactly is it? And what does it do?

On the GPU side of things, the reason demand for hardware has increased is because many cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin etc) are mined. Mining cryptocurrencies pays rewards, to the tune of dozens of millions of dollars per day. With an increase in the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum, this reward increases. This then deepens the miner’s pockets, and incentivises them to buy more hardware.

Mining boils down to legions of computers doing trillions of calculations per second to try and solve a “hash”, essentially making random guesses and hoping to arrive at the correct number that will let them “solve” a block. It just so happens to be the case that for certain cryptocurrencies, most high-end GPUs are extremely well suited for this. Miners use GPUs today to compete against each other by trying billions of combinations to “solve” the block.

Supporters of Bitcoin tend to claim that this drain on hardware (and the planet) is a nominal sacrifice needed for the benefits Bitcoin offers to the world. Bitcoin offers the world a means of decentralized payment, a secure store of value, and banks the unbanked.

But what if I told you that Bitcoin is old? It is outdated? And that we as gamers actually have access to a tool that can solve this fiasco once and for all?

*dramatic entrance noises*

Enter Nano

Nano can do what bitcoin does, but better. Much, much better. More importantly, it does so without the need for mining, massive hardware demands, and without the associated energy usage.

Bitcoin is slow and expensive (think 10USD ++ for a single transfer). It is an aging giant that is way past its prime. Nano on the other hand transfers instantly (sub-second) and feelessly.

Don’t believe me? Test it out for yourself here: get a Nano wallet (Natrium for mobile, Nault for desktop recommended) and visit a free Nano faucet to grab some free Nano.

Now I might appear to be a little biased here, and that is true. But I just want to get something across; there are alternatives to Bitcoin out there that are better, faster, sleeker and require 0 mining that are trying to do what Bitcoin does, but in a more ecologically and hardware friendly manner.  

I have been using it myself, personally, because I play games with friends from the other side of the world, and it turns out that Nano was the best way to pay for some of the gifts I wanted to send them. I get Nano by going onto my local exchange and buying some, transferring it to my own Natrium app and sending it to the other side of the world, and they cash out. This process takes less than 5 mins if they’re online; way faster than traditional remittances via banks. And cheaper too.

As for all the tech-investors out there, Nano has also been historically outperforming Bitcoin. Nano has lower inflation than Bitcoin, while being more decentralized and more secure. In terms of price performance, Nano is gaining in price more than Bitcoin, both since Nano’s inception and in the past year.

Nano does this without mining. Zero, Zilch, Nada. Because there are no fees and no inflation, there is nothing to compete for. Nano validators are not incentivized by millions in rewards, but rather by their own self-interest.

The nodes that confirm Nano transactions are cheap to run and maintain as well. In fact, most of our nodes are run by hobbyists and community members. Furthermore, the network is developed by the Nano Foundation, a non-profit aiming to give everyone access to secure, digital money.

Most importantly, the lack of competition for hardware means there are no corporations nor miners in the Nano ecosystem. There is literally no reason to buy GPUs to mine Nano. Transaction validation is cooperative, rather than competitive, with no energy/hardware being wasted on trying to compete with others.

So what can we do? The first thing I would say is that if you hold Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Litecoin, or Chia, or any other mining cryptocurrency — be aware that you’re indirectly supporting miners and what they do. Be aware also that you have the power to sell these cryptocurrencies, and buy Nano, leading to lower hardware prices.

If you don’t hold crypto and still feel wary about it, you don’t have to take my word for it, there are many resources such as: https://docs.nano.org/what-is-nano/overview/ that you can look into to obtain a better understanding.

Nano combines the best of both worlds, offering higher speed, lower fees, and better scalability because of the lack of mining. We have a very welcoming community over at reddit, and discord. Feel free to come over to say hi, or if you have any questions.

Even if you don’t want to actually hold crypto — do consider accepting Nano as a payment option if you’re a merchant. There are plenty of services that allow you to take Nano payments and automatically convert it into fiat, instantly, so you have no crypto exposure. As an additional upside, you pay lower payment processing costs than with most traditional payment methods. See NowPayments or Coingate for this (the reddit community would be more than happy to help you out with this too). In return, you also get a fair bit of free promotion out of it since the Nano community is very keen on looking for ways to spend their nano.

Are you a streamer instead? Well, you can take Nano tips on Twitch, or add a donation address for Nano on your Youtube channel. Whether you’re a juicer, or a bajs, or just a regular twitchfrog (youtubefrogs welcome too), Nano is open for everyone, and there are no minimum requirements. The more people get on it, the more we can enjoy a feeless way to support our streamers.

The more people know about Nano, the more valuable the Nano network becomes. The more recognition it obtains, the more it validates itself as an alternative to cryptos that use mining. In other words, more people knowing about Nano, using Nano, or investing in Nano directly increases its viability as an alternative to mining cryptocurrencies, and directly translates to decreasing miner profits and total hardware demand.

The way I see it, cryptocurrency isn’t going to just disappear. The need for a decentralised, feeless way to transfer value to anyone, anywhere, instantly and in an environmentally friendly matter is needed and no amount of wishing will wish it away. GPU manufacturers can try to make their GPUs less attractive for crypto mining, but at the end of the day they are also in it to win it, which isn’t favourable for you, or for me.

We can take these mining cartels down together, me, you, and the Nano team. Wake the f*** up samurai, we got a city to burn.

Also huge shout-out to Senatus for help with proof-reading, editing, and scripting.

P.S. For more in-depth technical knowledge regarding Nano, Proof of stake, Directed Acyclic Graphs and what makes Nano tick, visit: Nano.Community