In January 2017, Maksim Balashevich, CEO of Santiment, a German crypto-market intelligence start-up predicted a dramatic cryptocurrency boom in 2017 due to euphoric market sentiment-one which would outstrip bitcoin- regarding cryptocurrencies.
His prediction seems to have come to pass.
From February 2017, cryptocurrencies have been surging in value, Ethereum for example, has seen the value of one ether (1 unit) grow from $10 in February, 2017 to over $260 in June, 2017.
The boom has had spillover effects into other markets. Due to the nature of Cryptocurrencies, the integrity and balance of the distributed ledgers is maintained by a community of “miners”. A miner can be any member of the public who offers up their computing resources to validate and timestamp ledgers and are usually rewarded with tiny transaction fees. The Crypto-boom has seen more members of the public beginning to use their home computers to mine cryptocurrencies as well as the development of commercial scale “Cryptocurrency Mining Farms” as awareness continues to increase.
This increased interest in mining has resulted in a global shortage of certain silicon based integrated circuit components such as graphics processing units (GPUs). This in turn has fueled innovation in the tech industry as semi-conductor companies scramble to develop new cryptocurrency mining-tailored technology to sate demand.
