Due to the recent popularity and innovations in mining cryptocurrency, certain computer parts are becoming in short supply. Researchers from Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence claim that their journey to find life in outer space is being halted by the sudden demand for graphics processing units in crypto mining operations.
SeTi uses as many as 100 GPUs to process large amounts of radio telescope transmission data. “At Seti we want to look at as many frequency channels as we possibly can because we don't know what frequency ET will be broadcasting on and we want to look for lots of different signal types - is it AM or FM, what communication are they using?” explained a researcher.
According to RT, the price of GPUs have doubled in the last couple of months and some companies are not pleased with the increase. One of these companies, Nvidia went so far to state “We know that demand from cryptocurrency miners is a huge factor behind the incredibly high graphics card prices we see right now. In an attempt to combat this phenomenon, Nvidia is asking its retail partners to limit the maximum number of GPU sales to two per person.”
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43056744
https://www.rt.com/news/418830-alien-search-cryptocurrency-hamper/
https://www.techspot.com/news/72854-nvidia-asking-graphics-card-retailers-prioritize-gamers-over.html