Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a processor designed to run thousands of simple calculations in parallel, originally for rendering images on a screen. A modern high-end GPU contains more than 10,000 processing cores, compared with the 8 to 24 general purpose cores in a typical CPU, which makes it far faster at repetitive mathematical workloads such as hashing.

Why it matters

GPUs powered the second era of bitcoin mining. In 2010, miners discovered that a graphics card could compute SHA-256 hashes tens of times faster than a CPU, and hobbyist rigs with multiple cards quickly pushed CPU miners out of profitability. That era ended in 2013, when application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) built solely for SHA-256 made GPUs obsolete for bitcoin, though GPUs continued to mine other cryptocurrencies, most notably Ethereum until its 2022 switch to proof of stake.

The GPU chapter established a pattern that still defines mining: an open competition where more efficient hardware wins, difficulty adjusts upward, and security grows as more capital and energy are committed to the network. The same chips later became the backbone of artificial intelligence computing, and miners and AI data centers now compete for power capacity.

In the gold vs bitcoin debate

Gold mining industrialized over centuries, moving from pans to draglines and cyanide heap leaching. Bitcoin compressed a similar arc, from laptops to GPU rigs to warehouse-scale ASIC farms, into roughly five years. Both assets tie new supply to real-world cost in machinery and energy, which is the shared foundation of their scarcity arguments.