If you've ever tried to buy the latest and greatest graphics card like the Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD's Big Navi, you know how difficult it can be. Unfortunately, it may become even more difficult as bitcoin's value soars to new heights alongside other cryptocurrencies and crypto mining is on the rise.

The result could be a return of the graphics card shortage of 2017. Explosive demand from prospective miners led to a shortage of graphics card inventory, driving up the price of available cards. This time, however, mining demand has exacerbated existing shortages caused by limited supply and the efforts of duffers.

As of 4:30 a.m. ET on January 6, one bitcoin is worth just over $34,000, setting a new record for the value of cryptocurrencies; a month ago, it was $19,111 a piece, meaning its value has nearly doubled. And no doubt, this number will continue to rise over the next few days. As for Ethereum, its value has surged by more than $1,000 in the past week.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about cryptocurrencies knows that you don't have to buy coins to get in on this action. Anyone can "mine" new coins by using free and simple open source software to complete verified transaction blocks. You just need a machine powerful enough to do the mining.

The hashing algorithm underlying Bitcoin means that GPU mining is rather inefficient. However, other cryptocurrencies such as Ehterum still benefit from GPU-based mining.

Therefore, along with Bitcoin, the price of such cryptocurrencies is expected to soar, leading to increased interest in digital money and more people considering using powerful graphics cards for mining. In the past, the soaring value of cryptocurrencies has caused miners to buy up as many graphics cards as they could get their hands on.

While graphics cards are no longer the best way to mine cryptocurrencies, there is still demand from aspiring miners looking to cash in on the rising value of cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, Tom's Hardware points out that the $1,499 Nvidia RTX 3090 will pay for itself in about 150 days of mining; a $399 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti will pay for itself in almost half the time, taking only 80 days to break even.

As if finding the latest graphics cards wasn't already almost impossible, now we have to deal with bots and crypto-miners racing to buy them all. If you were hoping to get one during the next big restocking, you will probably be disappointed.

The prices of various cryptocurrencies will eventually drop, freeing up graphics cards for gamers, but it is impossible to predict when that will happen; we can still see where to buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, but things will remain tough for the time being.