Ethereum hits record $1,918, surges 160% this year

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalisation, hit a record high of $1,918.52 in early trade on Thursday, as per CoinDesk data.

Nvidia announced on Thursday that it will release a new series of semiconductors specifically for mining ether, a cryptocurrency. The new type of chip is called a CMP, or Cryptocurrency Mining Processor.

CMP products - which don’t do graphics - are sold through authorized partners and optimized for the best mining performance and efficiency,” Matt Wuebbling, head of GeForce marketing at Nvidia wrote in a blog post.

Nvidia said that the latest chip in its gaming graphics cards series, the RTX 3060, would be modified when it’s released later this year so it won’t mine ether effectively. Cards that have already been sold, like the RTX 3070 or RTX 3080, do not have the same limitations, as per NVIDIA.

“RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and limit the hash rate, or cryptocurrency mining efficiency, by around 50 percent,” NVIDIA’s said in a blog post.

Ether mining is a process in which computers solve complicated math programs to help the Ethereum cryptocurrency network run. In exchange, miners get ether, the digital coin that runs on the Ethereum network.

The cryptocurrency's rally came as Bitcoin surpassed the $52,000-mark for the first time on Wednesday. Ethereum has jumped 160% year-to-date to over $1,914.