i wonder that also. its one thing to put out custom mining cards, but for either company to actually design a coin, figure a use for it (store of value, utility, whatever) its algos, and get it traded on exchanges seems pretty risky as now they are directly involved in "printing money" so to speak. thats way out of their normal business.

maybe a spinoff company? dunno.

and what if the coin bombs? just because amd or nvidia makes it doesnt mean it wont be just another shitcoin. might be a lot of r&d down the tubes.

they might be able to (unofficially? but thats risky too if caught) support some devs of an existing or new coin. or be an advisor or something.

i can see devs moving to algos that need 10 gb or more (1080ti class memory) in the short term but even that wont hold back asic/fpga for long, looks like its getting much easier to add large chunks of ram to fpga, the uxppr3 has 4 rdimm slots in it. plus its ability to take (the super expensive and stupid fast) qdrii+ memory.

im still gonna risk a fpga. i must admit it will be mainly for the fun and to play with it. i dont really see it as a super weapon or major money maker though. but i dont see it as being super terrible, i would think it would eventually make its money back but years vs months? who knows.