The Crypto Basic

The manufacturer of graphics chips, Nvidia, admitted that it mistakenly released a driver that allow you to bypass the mining speed limit on the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.

An Nvidia spokesperson confirmed that the latest driver update 470.05 was mistakenly released with code intended for use only by Nvidia developers, removing the cryptocurrency mining speed limiter.

The developer version of the driver included code used for internal development that removes the hashrate limiter on the RTX 3060 in configurations.

In February, Nvidia announced that the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card would be protected from miners. The driver halved performance if it noticed a typical mining load. The company said that the protocol cannot be hacked. This restriction was introduced in order to reduce the shortage of video cards in the market, caused by the increased popularity of cryptocurrency mining. The company explained that they want GeForce cards to be used by gamers.

But the protection was circumvented thanks to the specialists of Nvidia itself. The company posted a driver for developers with disabled protection from miners. The mistakenly released update was removed from open sources, but is already in full swing on the Internet. It turned out that the driver works without any modifications and allows you to increase the hashrate to 47-48 MH/s, against 20-25 MH/s, which occur when doing crypto mining.

Last week, there was information that the mining restriction can be circumvented. Read More: Nvidia’s Hash Rate Limiter Cracked By Crypto Miners Within Two Weeks

A Romanian barber was arrested on suspicion of stealing $620,000 worth of cryptocurrency. Berber has been detained since March 5th.

A 38-year-old Romanian barber named Ionel Roman was arrested for crimes such as hacking, fraud, and money laundering. Roman is suspected of stealing crypto money by targeting a Cayman Islands-based company that is considered the seventh-largest crypto operator in the world.

How did the barber steal the cryptocurrencies?

Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, DIICOT, said that between January 28 and 31, the suspect Ionel entered the Cayman Islands company’s computer using an illegal API. The suspect, who was reported to have made unauthorized access, gained access to the section where crypto accounts were checked.

DIICOT said that Ionel, that gained access to the crypto accounts of the firm, transferred $620,000 to several accounts belonging to different peoples, that paid him real money for buying cryptocurrencies. Ionel Roman withdrew 620 thousand dollars by dividing it into 10 thousand Romanian lei (about 25 thousand dollars) so that he does not have to prove his identity. All money was sent to various cryptocurrency addresses or platforms.

His house was raided

Romanian police raided the barber’s house twice on March 4th. 7 mobile devices, 3 laptops, 5 memory cards, 2 electronic wallets, and approximately 25 thousand dollars were seized along with the culprit.

Recently announced that Nvidia would be limiting the mining efficiency of their Nvidia RTX card range. The mining efficiency would be reduced by as much as 50% through software. However, this software limitation has been circumvented by a number of Chinese cryptocurrency miners within two weeks.

Measures from Nvidia to reduce pressure on graphics cards

This restriction was initially imposed because there has been a huge stock shortage for a long time. This is because of the global corona measures that make the production and distribution of graphics cards difficult. Many of the graphics cards still available are bought by bots from cryptocurrency miners and scalpers. Scalpers are individuals or companies who buy up stocks of hard-to-obtain products and then sell them for a higher price. The regular gamers also try to get hold of one of the new graphics cards. This creates a very difficult situation.

However, to partially solve this, Nvidia has come up with a solution: limiting the hash rate when performing cryptocurrency-related activities. This by developing software and implementing it in the graphics cards. In addition, Nvidia also comes with a product specially developed for cryptocurrency, which should reduce the pressure on their regular graphics cards. However, it now turns out that Nvidia’s software can be bypassed relatively easily. This while Nvidia has previously indicated that end users would not be able to extract the hash limiter from the driver in any way. This now turns out to be untrue.

Stock Shortage

The software has been developed so that it can analyze what tasks are being performed. In this way, it can be checked whether cryptocurrency-related tasks have been performed or not. If it did, the hash rate would be reduced by 50%. An example: The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 can normally output about 45 MH per second. This equates to about 45,000,000 hashes per second. When crypto-related tasks are subsequently recognized, this falls to around 20-22.5 MH per second, a significant decrease in the efficiency of the card.

Chinese groups along with Vietnam modders managed to circumvent those restrictions. This is not a positive sign for the global gaming community. This could possibly ensure that the stock shortages are far from being resolved. However, the upcoming product specially developed for cryptocurrency could provide some relief.