<p>I thought someone would have answered this by now. </p>

<p>Folks will argue but bitcoin is still a relatively new currency. A couple of regulations here, some stolen money there, and a lot of people may stop using it. </p>

<p>NVidia and AMD's target market (gamers and graphics designers) have a fairly predictable demand. This bitcoin thing is a new category and no one knows where it will be a few years now. Chip manufacturing (unlike say software development) is a heavy investment industry. Investment in factories, people and minerals. </p>

<p>It takes a while to ramp up production in order to satisfy the demand of this new category of coin miners. What if, by the time, the ramp up is completed, the miners have left? </p>

<p>This uncertainty is probably why they are taking it slow. let the market adjusts itself while they ramp up slowly. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-24T07:05:47.937Z
And then if bitcoin dies market will be oversaturated with second hand used cards... yeah. I can see the issue.
Gensys LTD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-24T07:35:05.370Z
The speculative part of this answer is interesting, but the main thing we know for sure and already answers the question is "It takes a while to ramp up production".
Giskard
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-24T08:37:33.690Z
It does take a while, but as I read, it's not a matter of years but a matter of months, so if the consumer market grows, companies can easily and rapidly adapt within at most three months. The market uncertainty is a much more compelling argument IMO to answer the lack of action taken to alleviate the market pressure in a large way.
Gensys LTD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-27T23:16:00.733Z
This doesn't really affect the economic principle, but another force driving up prices are the increasing usage of graphics cards as the primary processor in AI and other big data functions, and that isn't going to do anything but grow.
Ask About Monica
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-24T06:49:44.407Z
2018-03-24T08:09:09.467Z
2018-03-24T08:09:09.467Z
Jay
<p>I thought it would mean more sales thus more production and more profit, so why does nvidia and amd simply dont ramp up production if the trend has been now quite a long one?</p>

<p>And as far as I can see it's the retailers that are upping the prices, not the manufacturers so the manufacturers could easily adapt to demand within a month or two.</p>

<p>Am I missing something?</p>

<markets><bitcoin>
Why do graphic card prices rise due to bitcoin miners?
Gensys LTD
# Why do graphic card prices rise due to bitcoin miners?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-03-24)

I thought it would mean more sales thus more production and more profit, so why does nvidia and amd simply dont ramp up production if the trend has been now quite a long one?

And as far as I can see it's the retailers that are upping the prices, not the manufacturers so the manufacturers could easily adapt to demand within a month or two.

Am I missing something?

**Tags:** markets, bitcoin


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-03-24. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

I thought someone would have answered this by now.

Folks will argue but bitcoin is still a relatively new currency. A couple of regulations here, some stolen money there, and a lot of people may stop using it.

NVidia and AMD's target market (gamers and graphics designers) have a fairly predictable demand. This bitcoin thing is a new category and no one knows where it will be a few years now. Chip manufacturing (unlike say software development) is a heavy investment industry. Investment in factories, people and minerals.

It takes a while to ramp up production in order to satisfy the demand of this new category of coin miners. What if, by the time, the ramp up is completed, the miners have left?

This uncertainty is probably why they are taking it slow. let the market adjusts itself while they ramp up slowly.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: And then if bitcoin dies market will be oversaturated with second hand used cards... yeah. I can see the issue.  
> **username_2**: The speculative part of this answer is interesting, but the main thing we know for sure and already answers the question is "It takes a while to ramp up production".  
> **username_0**: It does take a while, but as I read, it's not a matter of years but a matter of months, so if the consumer market grows, companies can easily and rapidly adapt within at most three months. The market uncertainty is a much more compelling argument IMO to answer the lack of action taken to alleviate the market pressure in a large way.  
> **username_3**: This doesn't really affect the economic principle, but another force driving up prices are the increasing usage of graphics cards as the primary processor in AI and other big data functions, and that isn't going to do anything but grow.  

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