[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] U.S. semiconductor company Nvidia has developed a new semiconductor chip for mining the cryptocurrency Ethereum and plans to launch it in March, CNBC reported on the 18th (local time).
According to the report, Nvidia announced plans to release a semiconductor chip for Ethereum mining named CMP (short for Cryptocurrency Mining Processor).
This comes amid a recent surge in the price of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin, and a shortage of automotive semiconductors.
Ethereum mining is carried out through solving complex mathematical calculations on computers, which involves the use of graphics cards and other hardware.
CNBC also reported that Nvidia earned hundreds of millions of dollars in quarterly revenue by selling chips to cryptocurrency miners in 2017.
At that time, Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, said, "Market demand for cryptocurrency will grow considerably over time."
Meanwhile, according to the cryptocurrency site Coindesk, the price of Ethereum reached an all-time high of $1,950 per coin on the morning of the 19th Korean time. Ethereum has risen more than 160% since the beginning of this year.
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