News

Crypto-currency impact on Add-in Boards

Special report from Jon Peddie Research

Robert Dow

TIBURON, CA-December 14, 2017-Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, today released a special report on the impact of crypto-currency mining on the graphics add-in board market.

Crypto-currency mining accounts for $1.05 billion dollars in AIB revenue since Q1’15, and accounts for the sales of 4.6 million AIBs.

Ethereum and Bitcoin, are among the best known crypto currencies but many more have appeared in the market. Some have already come and gone. Bitcoin arrived in 2009 and set off the first wave of the cryto-currency bubble. In its early days Bitcoin mining was performed by enthusiasts using banks of graphics boards. As the field became more professional, custom FGPAs and ASICs were designed for the task, and the use of graphics boards for Bitcoin mining began to decline in 2011. Ethereum, introduced in July 2015 has once again boosted the sales of GPU AIBs. Ethereum has been optimized for a GPU on an AIB, and it does not appear to be receptive to a customized FPGA or ASIC as Bitcoin was. In all cases, AMD has been an early beneficiary in crypto-currency mining and Nvidia has quickly joined in. Some of the other currencies (and it seems more are being added every week) are: Expanse, Karvowaner, MinerGate, Monero, and Sumokoin, to name a few.

However, it has been difficult to ascertain just how many AIBs were going to crypto currency mining and therefore not to gaming and other applications—till now.

Methodology
The overall attach rate of midrange and high-end AIBs has been going up due to gamers refreshing their AIBs more often than they refresh their PCs. That is due to an increase in great new performance demanding games, and the influence of eSports. However, in addition to that rise in attach rate there has been a demand for AIBs from Crypto-currency miners. We think that demand will taper off in Q4’17 and decline to very low percentage during 2018, subject to the ROI based on the value of Ethereum and Bitcoins.

The detailed analysis, on a quarter-by-quarter basis in unit shipments by AIB segment, and dollar value is provided in the special report Crypto-currency impact on Add-in Boards.

The special report on the impact of crypto-currency mining on AIBs is offered as a free supplement to our Market Watch, and Add-in Board Market subscribers. Non-subscribers can get a copy of the special report by purchasing a single issue of Market Watch, or the AIB report, or by taking out a subscription on either service.

Pricing and Availability
The Jon Peddie Research's Market Watch is available now in both electronic and hard copy editions, and sells for $2,500. Included with this report is an Excel workbook with the data used to create the charts, the charts themselves, and supplemental information. The annual subscription price for JPR's Market Watch is $5,000 and includes four quarterly issues. 

Full subscribers to JPR services receive Tech Watch (the company's bi-weekly report) and a copy of Market Watch as part of their subscription. 

Click here to learn more about this major report, or to download it now. Or, for more information call 415/435-9368 or visit the Jon Peddie Research website at www.jonpeddie.com.
Contact Robert Dow at JPR ([email protected]) for a free sample of TechWatch. 

About Jon Peddie Research
Dr. Jon Peddie has been active in the graphics and multimedia fields for more than 30 years. Jon Peddie Research is a technically oriented multimedia and graphics research and consulting firm. Based in Tiburon, California, JPR provides consulting, research, and other specialized services to technology companies in a variety of fields including graphics development, multimedia for professional applications and consumer electronics, high-end computing, and Internet-access product development. Jon Peddie's Market Watch is a quarterly report focused on the market activity of PC graphics controllers for notebook and desktop computing.

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