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AI Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Companies Once Focused On Mining Cryptocurrency Pivot To Generative AI (theguardian.com) 48

Posted by EditorDavid from the plan-B dept.
"Companies that once serviced the boom in cryptocurrency mining are pivoting to take advantage of the latest data gold rush," reports the Guardian. Canadian company Hive Blockchain changed its name in July to Hive Digital Technologies and announced it was pivoting to AI. "Hive has been a pioneering force in the cryptocurrency mining sector since 2017. The adoption of a new name signals a significant strategic shift to harness the potential of GPU Cloud compute technology, a vital tool in the world of AI, machine learning and advanced data analysis, allowing us to expand our revenue channels with our Nvidia GPU fleet," the company said in its announcement at the time. The company's executive chairman, Frank Holmes, told Guardian Australia the transition required a lot of work. "Moving from mining Ethereum to hosting GPU cloud services involves buying powerful new servers for our GPUs, upgrading networking equipment and moving to higher tier data centres," he said.

"The only commonality is that GPUs are the workhorses in both cases. GPU cloud requires higher end supporting hardware and a more secure, faster data centre environment. There's a steep learning curve in the GPU cloud business, but our team is adapting well and learning fast."

For others, like Iris Energy, a datacentre company operating out of Canada and Texas, and co-founded by Australian Daniel Roberts, it has been the plan all along. Iris did not require any changes to the way the company operated when the AI boom came along, Roberts told Guardian Australia. "Our strategy really has been about bootstrapping the datacentre platform with bitcoin mining, and then just preserve optionality on the whole digital world. The distinction with us and crypto-miners is we're not really miners, we're datacentre people." The company still trumpets its bitcoin mining capability but in the most recent results Iris said it was well positioned for "power dense computing" with 100% renewable energy. Roberts said it wasn't an either-or situation between bitcoin mining and AI.

"I think when you look at bitcoin versus AI, the market will just reach equilibrium based on the market-based demands for each product," he said... Holmes said Hive also saw the two industries operating in parallel. "We love the bitcoin mining business, but its revenue is rather unpredictable. GPU cloud services should complement it well," he said.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.
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Companies Once Focused On Mining Cryptocurrency Pivot To Generative AI More

Companies Once Focused On Mining Cryptocurrency Pivot To Generative AI

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  • Pivot from One Destructive Scam to Another (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crunchy_one ( 1047426 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @12:56PM (#64192554)

    Our strategy really has been about bootstrapping the datacentre platform with bitcoin mining, and then just preserve optionality on the whole digital world. The distinction with us and crypto-miners is we're not really miners, we're datacentre people.

    Both burn huge amounts of fuel to generate absolutely nothing of value. What they're really saying is, "think of our data center the furnace."

    • Re:Pivot from One Destructive Scam to Another (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @01:15PM (#64192592) Homepage

      Both burn huge amounts of fuel to generate absolutely nothing of value

      Crypto, I agree, generates absolutely nothing of value. But why would you place AI in the same category?

      In contrast to crypto, AI performs real work that is actually help to people in their personal lives and at work:
      - GitHub Copilot is quickly growing into a powerful coding assistant that has saved me a ton of time, especially in areas of code or languages where I am less fluent.
      - Google's NotebookLM can ingest complex legal documents like leases, terms of service, employment agreements & handbooks, insurance policies, and other contracts, and answer straightforward questions about what they contain, making it far quicker to compare alternatives.
      - All of the big AI chatbots can dramatically shorten the time it takes to do research on nearly any topic, or produce step-by-step instructions.

      Maybe you don't see value in AI. I certainly do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        It is unlikely that these companies are pivoting to AI that actually do anything useful. Content spam to gobble up ad dollars is more their wheel well.

        • As with any technology, I suspect there is some combination of useful and useless and unwanted activities. The formerly crypto miners won't be the ones implementing the actual use cases, they'll be renting their equipment to whoever wants to pay for computer time, just like any hosting provider.

        • The company mentioned in the article doesn't do any AI themselves, they just lease computing resources to others.

        • Shutting down crypto bros is real work. Best useof AI i have yet heard.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          I have to agree (and I support AI) - specifically, because of the sorts of GPUs used. Most crypto GPU tasks care about performance, while most AI tasks by contrast - especially training - care primarily about VRAM. So it sure seems likely that what they'll be used for is inference (running) of low-end models, which churn out content really quickly targeted at a specific task, either a very simple one, or one with a custom model trained to it.

          Spam would fall under that category.

      • "Crypto, I agree, generates absolutely nothing of value. But why would you place AI in the same category?"

        Because it's THE SAME COMPANY: if they produce nothing of value and then make minimal changes, chances are they are still producing nothing of value.

        • Walmart sells both things that are intrinsically valuable (food, clothing) and things that are not (toilet tattoos, bacon-scented pillows, Smurf boxers). https://www.buzzfeed.com/brian... [buzzfeed.com] The fact that "the same company" sells both sets of things, says nothing about the value of the specific thing we might be discussing.

          As you may have noticed, computers (including graphics cards) can be used for all kinds of things, both good and bad and useful and useless. These companies have...computers. They don't real

          • "The value (or not) of AI has nothing to do with who owns the hardware it runs on."

            True as it is, it is not the defining feature here. The key is that the people who engaged 100% in a useless, scammy stuff have determined that renting their equipment to people doing Generative "AI" suits their personality type and and ethical preferences well, better even. It's like if a shady gambler suddenly switches to selling vaping paraphernalia, you have to think there must be bad about the vaping business.

            • The key is that the people who engaged 100% in a useless, scammy stuff have determined that renting their equipment to people doing Generative "AI" suits their personality type and and ethical preferences well

              I guarantee Amazon (AWS), Azure, and Google Cloud don't do an assessment of the scamminess of the websites they host. They just want your money. These hardware operators don't care either, except to the extent that they get paid something for their computer time.

              How about let's not focus so much on what's in the hearts of the equipment owners here, and focus more on the merits of the AI technology itself. Unlike crypto, AI solves real-world problems, whatever hardware it runs on.

              • I doubt that AWS rents you "compute" for mining that could possibly be profitable, but, that aside,

                "Unlike crypto, AI solves real-world problems"

                If by AI you mean "generative AI" (I don't dispute it necessarily otherwise, there is value in ML), what real world problems GenAI solves? It's been a year since ChatGPT was released, nothing of utility has come up, apart from github copilot which is kinda tied with Stack Overflow (I'd pick the latter, some the former).

                As far as I can tell, there is no GenAI killer

                • Some real-world uses, you bet!

                  GitHub Copilot does a whole log more than Stack Overflow. Sure, I can find answers there, but then I have to adapt them to work within the context of my code. Copilot does that for you. It not only suggests possible solutions, but it adapts them to use MY variable names and MY style.

                  Further, I can ask it to analyze my code, such as to trace the original source of a particular value coming into a function I'm looking at, or suggest a fix for an error message I'm receiving. I can

    • A peon slashdotter moralizing about what a successful entrepreneur should be doing with their time and legally-earned money? Color me shocked!!
      • An 18-th Century slaver legally earned money. Most were hunted down and shot-dead during the American Civil war. The HIVE coyboiz easily switch from one grift to another and count-on  parasite money-grubbings  sheep to follow. That's nothing to call success, except by a scabish sociopath.
        • HIVE? Is that an initialism? Also, imagine comparing slavers with businesses using their computers as they see fit.

    • >Destructive Scam

      If I want a good laugh at the delusions of old people, I come to Slashdot's comment section

  • Finally, something useful comes from crypto craze! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @01:06PM (#64192572) Homepage

    All that hardware is already sitting there mostly idle, and it's quite well-suited to running LLMs. Why not! At least AI does something that is useful!

    • Adding more color to what anon said, the crypto hardware is mostly a mix of custom ASICS and lower end bang for the buck gpus.

      The custom ASICS are literally worthless for AI.

      The low end gpus are not economically viable for the task.

      The rest of the crypto boxes are generic low end trash sufficient to boot an OS and host the crypto hardware. I guess they could recycle power supplies and cables and such.

      • Well if you're right, then these former crypto miners will have trouble adapting their hardware to the task, won't they!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Etherium and GPUs are mentioned in the second paragraph of the summary.

        The low end gpus are not economically viable for the task.

        And this is bullshit. I assume by "low end" you mean "not an H100". You can run most of the bigger models on a single recent generation gaming card, and actual models desgined to do things other than make pictures and chat usually run fine on even more modest hardware.

        • No. I mean low end. I worked in crypto for a while in between real jobs.

          Low end means low end. I built these boxes by hand.

          • Then why was it the high-end GPUs that got scalped the most by cryptominers during the crypto boom?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            I guess the mining company I bought a bunch of 3090s from was quite a bit better than the one you worked for then. The optimum mining cards were typically right at the top of the consumer tier, so that's what most mining companies bought.

            • If they bought used ones for cheap in bulk, sure, but I assume someone did a cost efficiency calculation on time vs cost vs power vs average mining time to come up with those 3090s which worked for you.

              If they were new then no way they were worth it.

  • Gotta keep that money on the move (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Today's fortunes cannot show an honest dollar

  • But it just shows they don't know what they're doing, and have no real ideas.

  • The only thing Hive Blockain (or whatever) consistently delivers is late financials:
    https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

    This company is EverFail. Any "strategic shift" is "pivoting" to a new grift, and has nothing at all to do with AI.

  • Let the Convergence begin!

  • Companies need to learn to pivot properly! https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • But what do I do... (Score:3)

    by jddj ( 1085169 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @06:20PM (#64193234) Journal

    ...with all these goddamn monkeys?

    Shit.

  • If you run one scam, you can run any.

  • Can't you smell that smell?

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