Cryptominers Have Bypassed NVIDIA’s Hash Rate Limiter [Update]

Update – It turns out that NVIDIA’s 30 series have not had their hash rate limiters hacked/cracked. The initial report, which came from @I_Leak_VN misinterpreted a cropped image. It was later discovered that this was for an alt-coin Octopus mining ring for Octopus. The readings are correct but because it was used for something else, and not ETH, it should not be understood that NVIDIA’s 30 series’ ETH-specific hash limiters have been cracked.

To mine for cryptocurrency, you would need a powerful GPU. This is why many cryptominers have been snapping up high-end GPUs, much to the annoyance of many gamers who are looking to buy GPUs to play their games. Now, NVIDIA tried to curb this behavior by introducing hash rate limiters to reduce the mining efficiency of their GPUs, but it seems that did not last long.

This is because Chinese cryptominers have already managed to figure out how to bypass the hash rate limiters, which means that whatever limits that NVIDIA had placed on its GPUs have been broken through and that they are now functioning at 100% when it comes to mining efficiency.

For those unfamiliar, NVIDIA’s hash rate limiter was designed to reduce mining efficiency by 50%. This was meant to discourage miners from buying consumer-grade GPUs which were designed for gamers. NVIDIA had also launched GPUs designed for mining, but it seems that some miners still prefer using these GPUs instead.

We’re not sure if NVIDIA will find another way to patch this, but we reckon it probably would be a waste of time as we imagine that miners will probably find another way around it and it would just end up being an endless game of cat and mouse.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: cryptocurrency, NVIDIA, Social Hit