Digital currencies are the big issue.

After all, their market capitalization is now more than $ 2,500 billion.

Your price gains are breathtaking, and if you invested at the right time, you can already be a millionaire.

The financial industry is starting to be more and more interested in the topic, and companies are also starting to invest part of their cash reserves in crypto currencies.

But digital currencies haven't always been around.

They are created by computers.

But how does it actually work - and what are the effects?

Franz Nestler

Editor in business.

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To understand this, a look into the machine room of the Internet currency is necessary.

Bitcoin, like other digital currencies, is based on a technology called blockchain.

This is data that is packed in digital blocks and strung together in a chain.

The encrypted transactions are written in these blocks.

Each block is "chained" to its previous block and encrypted again in abbreviated form.

All previous transactions can be found in this block.

If someone tries to manipulate a transaction, the data block chain would break and the fraud would be noticed immediately.

This is how mining works

It sounds complex, too: The computers participating in the blockchain network take the data to be checked, put them in a formula and calculate a sequence of numbers and letters - the hash; in good German "das Zerhäckselte", or better: the checksum. This hash is at the end of a block. The larger the network, the more complex the calculation of the hash becomes. Each hash code is the solution of a complex mathematical process that requires a lot of computer power and therefore a lot of electricity. Once a hash is found, the computer that calculated it creates the block. He then receives a certain number of Bitcoin for each block, currently 6.25 Bitcoin, currently worth around 375,000 dollars. Such a block is calculated every ten minutes. This creates around 900 Bitcoin per day.

However, only the miner who solved the task first receives the block with the Bitcoin, which is then passed on to the network for documentation.

All members of the network now check the correctness of the new block.

When the majority has legitimized the block, it is attached to the blockchain.

The other miners who couldn't solve the task start all over again.

It is because of this complexity that the Bitcoin network devours so much electricity.

Graphics cards are in short supply

To make this worthwhile for miners, they basically have two levers: They can try to make their devices as effective as possible - or that the electricity is as cheap as possible.

And that leads to all sorts of strange situations.

Let's start with the hardware: These can hardly be compared with conventional computers in the office or study.

Graphics cards are most likely to be found in specialized computers.

In the early days of the computer, graphic calculations were largely carried out in the processor.

Since the 1990s, however, there have been special cards that have only specialized in the task of drawing 3-D elements.

These graphics cards have since become an increasingly important part of the computer.

The current problem for computer gamers: These graphics cards are also perfect for blockchain calculations.

This has led to high demand from miners, and at the same time to a lack of chips.

For computer gamers, this meant above all that graphics cards became more expensive or were and are no longer available at all.