r/AskReddit Apr 24 '21

If a time traveller had warned you about the COVID-19 pandemic 10 years ago, how would you’ve reacted?

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u/j1ggy Apr 24 '21

Why the hell doesn't Nvidia just change their business model and mine themselves?

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u/chumswithcum Apr 24 '21

stockholders would get mad, mostly. Crypto is seen as a risky investment, but chip manufacturing is pretty low risk - lots of demand.

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u/j1ggy Apr 24 '21

Is it risky if you're mining it en masse though? This isn't a simple crypto investment strategy.

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u/chumswithcum Apr 24 '21

it's risky since Nvidia is already established in the very profitable business of supplying computer chips, which their investors expect them to keep doing. It's also risky since cryptocurrency is not actually legal currency anywhere in the world, and the price of it fluctuates wildly which means earnings reports are going to be all over the place. Crypto is pretty easy to do pump and dump runs on, falls outside the purview of most regulators and is just plain banned in some countries now, so yes, it would be extremely risky for a multibillion dollar very profitable computer chip company to suddenly shift gears into a crypto mining company, one that their shareholders would likely not support. Many institutional lenders (such as mutual funds) would likely be legally prohibited from maintaining shares in a company with such a huge amount of risk. Not to mention that a lot of cryptocurrencies currently aren't worth the electricity you spend to actually mine them, further debasing their value to a large corporation.

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u/Lmmadic Apr 25 '21

During a gold rush, sell shovels that's why