Ethereum miners have reportedly bypassed Nvidia’s RTX 3060 mining lock

Update – It has been confirmed that Nvidia’s Geforce 470.05 developer driver has bypassed Nvidia’s Ethereum lock. Yes, Nvidia broke their own mining lock… More information is available here.

Reports have started to appear online claiming that Ethereum miners have bypassed Nvidia’s RTX 3060 mining lock, breaking Nvidia’s “unhackable” mining protections. 

PC Watch has reportedly “confirmed” that miners have been able to bypass Nvidia’s mining lock without any driver or BIOS modifications. Additionally, Videocardz has uncovered a quote from Phoenix Miner’s creator confirming that “the 3060 hash rate lock could be partially lifted” in a future version of the popular mining software.  

This is not good news for gamers or Nvidia. A confirmed hack will increase demand for Nvidia’s RTX 3060, inflating the graphics cards price while decreasing the GPU’s availability for gamers. Yes, cryptocurrency miners were already using the RTX 3060 to mine other cryptocurrencies. Still, the profitability of Ethereum mining is higher than alternative cryptocurrencies when Nvidia’s Ethereum lock is not in place. 

If these reports are legitimate, cryptocurrency miners have thrown off Nvidia’s rumoured hardware roadmap. If recent rumours are to be believed, Nvidia plans to launch RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards with cryptocurrency mining locks, offering their users higher specifications, more VRAM, and anti-mining locks. If Nvidia’s mining lock is broken, Nvidia will do little to improve the GPU market for gamers. 
 
Nvidia made bold claims about its Ethereum mining lock, making news of a potential bypass a considerable blow for Nvidia and their “pro-gamer” GPU limitation. Nvidia tried to stop Ethereum miners from using their RTX 3060, and it looks like they have failed. 

  
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