Bitcoin Miners Are Buying Up All The AMD Radeon GPUs, Driving Up Prices

As far as cryptocurrency goes, Bitcoin is arguably the most popular on the planet and also the most valuable. The process of getting these Bitcoins is called “Mining” and apparently, AMD’s Radeon graphics card units are incredibly useful for this task. As a result, the digital currency’s “Miners” are now buying up all of the Radeon GPUs, making them harder to find and more expensive.

In an email to CNBC, a spokesperson for the company said that the customers in the video game community are still the priorities of AMD. However, it seems the cryptocurrency market is also starting to represent a huge chunk of its GPU sales.

"The gaming market remains our priority. We are seeing solid demand for our Polaris-based offerings in the gaming and newly resurgent cryptocurrency mining markets based on the strong performance we are delivering," the email reads.

Although some miners are also using GPUs from Nvidia, it’s undeniable that AMD has a better reputation for the task. This is why AMD RX 570 and RX 580 GPUs in most retail stores and even online shops are sold out. Due to the scarcity of the cards, even older units are starting to surge in sales, proving that there is definitely high demand in the cryptocurrency market.

The trend has even caught on to auction sites such as eBay, where sellers are starting to put up used and new AMD GPUs. This is all having a good impact on the company’s bottom-line, but only time will tell if the trend will even last.

On that note, if the trend does go on, companies might just start developing GPUs that are specifically intended for cryptocurrency use, VentureBeat notes. This would create an industry-wide shift, where even processor chip makers like Intel will start developing their own products for the growing market.