Cryptocurrency Miners prevent the search for extraterrestrial civilizations

The American Institute specializing on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) complained that they could not purchase the necessary graphics cards for research work, which were bought by the Cryptocurrency Miners. "We'd like to use the latest GPUs [graphics processing units]... and we can't get 'em," said Dan Werthimer, professor at the Berkeley SETI Research Center.

 At the end of 2017, at the expense of the cryptocurrency Miners, the demand for graphics chips has grown significantly, thereby increasing the revenue of the world's major video card manufacturers AMD and nVidia.

"That's limiting our search for extra-terrestrials, to try to answer the question, 'Are we alone? Is there anybody out there?'," Dr Werthimer told the BBC.

"This is a new problem, it's only happened on orders we've been trying to make in the last couple of months."

He stressed that the research institution has enough money to purchase the necessary equipment, but when they contact the supplier, in response they hear only one thing: "We simply do not have them."

According to the professor, the Miners complicate the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and because of them, it is not yet possible to answer the question: "Are we alone in the universe?"