> I remember the scalping of GPUs due to crypto-mining and then all the things Nvidia did to market segment crypto out of the regular (gaming) consumer space.

This happened when Ethereum was a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain and then switched to an environmentally efficient method of consensus (Proof of Stake) which the demand for GPUs fell sharply afterwards.

> AI is much worse because the scale is OOM greater, but crypto/blockchain effects on the market weren't harmless either.

AI on the other hand has done the exact opposite and has little to show to make things efficient.

Instead, companies are buying up the world's supply of GPUs and building hundreds of data centers because that is the laziest way to scale up and then laying you off to pay for it all.